Entering his 16th season in the NFL, Mike Tomlin is one of the very best coaches in the league, and will one day enter the hallowed halls of the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.
Through 15 seasons, Tomlin sports a 154-85-2 record, good for a .643 winning percentage, has reached two Super Bowls (winning one) and is regarded as one of the top coaches in the entire league from a player’s perspective.
Knowing that, CBS Sports’ Cody Benjamin gave him proper credit his his recent head coach rankings, placing Tomlin fourth overall out of the 32 head coaches in the NFL, just ahead of Baltimore Ravens’ head coach John Harbaugh in fifth, and just behind New England’s Bill Belichick in third.
“The lack of recent deep-playoff success is a concern, as the Steelers are a combined 3-7 in the postseason since losing the Super Bowl in 2010,” Benjamin writes regarding Tomlin’s ranking at No. 4 overall. “Tomlin’s teams are also good for at least one annual clunker, and his in-game decision-making occasionally gets wonky. But man would other organizations love to have such a consistent, attentive leader. Even when crises strike on and off the field, he never lets the ship sink. You’ve heard the stat aplenty: in 15 years, he’s never once had a losing record. The question is, can he elevate their structure, with all-around physicality trumping QB certainty, to big-game success?”
Benjamin is spot-on writing that nearly every other organization in the NFL would love to have a consistent leader like Tomlin, one that holds the respect of not only his players, but his fellow coaches around the league. While he does have some in-game head scratchers and tends to have one game a year in which the Steelers appear ill-prepared for a lesser opponent, there’s no denying Tomlin’s greatness as a head coach in the NFL.
Some can get sick of hearing about the no losing seasons angle with him, but it’s a significant achievement for a man entering his 16th season at the helm of one of the most prestigious organizations in the NFL. He’ll have his work cut out for him in 2022 without Ben Roethlisberger under center, but he’s excited for the challenge, as he said on The Pivot podcast with Ryan Clark, Channing Crowder and Fred Taylor.
Ahead of Tomlin, Los Angeles Rams’ head coach Sean McVay ranked second for Benjamin, while Kansas City Chiefs’ head coach Andy Reid was Benjamin’s top coach in the NFL. Elsewhere in the AFC North, Cleveland’s Kevin Stefanski ranked 13th, while Cincinnati’s Zac Taylor — fresh off of a Super Bowl appearance — ranked 15th.
