Anybody who gets a new job is going to feel a compulsion to keep doing what it was that got them the job in the first place. That’s why we see so many first-time head coaches who move up from the coordinator ranks retain play-calling responsibilities, for example.
And it’s nothing new. It’s precisely why former Pittsburgh Steelers defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau was worried that his time might be up when the team named Mike Tomlin its next head coach. Having spent his career in 4-3 systems, serving one year as the Minnesota Vikings’ defensive coordinator, Tomlin very easily could have cleaned house.
“By this time, I had a lot of years of coordinating, so let’s put it this way, I wasn’t sending out any of my dry cleaning when Coach Tomlin got the job”, he said during a recent interview on 93.7 The Fan. “When the news came out that they named Mike the new head coach, I thought, ‘Well, Coach LeBeau, you may not be coaching in Pittsburgh’”.
As history shows, that’s not what happened. Tomlin left LeBeau exactly where he was, and in fact gave him some major reinforcements. His first draft brought in ILB Lawrence Timmons, OLB LaMarr Woodley, and CB William Gay. He remained in Pittsburgh under Tomlin for eight seasons, finishing first in total defense four times and in points allowed three times.
“While I was pondering my future, the phone rang, and it was Coach Tomlin”, LeBeau said. “He said he was not gonna make any changes on defense, so he told me right away, which I’ve always appreciated, because nobody’s looking to have to find a new job, particularly with the success we had on defense there”.
While Tomlin may have retained LeBeau and left him to his own devices for a number of years, it doesn’t appear as though it remained that way throughout the entirety of their working relationship. His successor, Keith Butler, said as he retired that Tomlin called most of the plays, and added that he’d already begun to do that late in LeBeau’s tenure.
But Tomlin was smart enough to leave a good thing alone while it was good. LeBeau’s last couple of seasons in Pittsburgh did leave a lot to be desired, and the two parted ways after the 2014 season, with LeBeau finishing up his career with two seasons in Tennessee.
One wonders what might have been had Tomlin been more aggressive from the outset. They won a Super Bowl together in their second year collaborating in 2008, and made it back in 2010, although they lost.
If Tomlin were to have decided to let him go and start his unit over, remaking it into a 4-3 front, who knows what would have happened? Given the success that they did have for most of his collaboration with LeBeau, it’s hard to imagine it would have been better. And he’s still running a 3-4 nearly a decade after LeBeau left.
