It’s easy to get overly emotional and to react accordingly in the moment. The Pittsburgh Steelers coming off an ugly, disappointing loss to a team they should be better than will heighten the rhetoric regardless of what the real sense might be.
The sudden widespread calling for head coach Mike Tomlin’s job, according to former NFL WR James Jones, is a product of that. “It’s absolutely crazy to even have Coach Tomlin’s name in anything like this”, he said during a Speak panel yesterday debating the merits of retaining the 17-year head coach.
While he naturally invoked the “no losing seasons”, talking about that gets far too much attention from both sides of the argument. He also warned about what might come if you do decide to move on. “You know, they always say the grass ain’t always greener on the other side. It’s a coaching carousel right now”.
“He is a hell of a coach”, Jones added. “He has done his job”.
That, of course, will be a controversial statement with even the most charitable reading. A head coach is responsible for everything that goes on with his team. Jones suggested that Tomlin is only responsible for the defensive side of the ball, but that is not true for any head coach, regardless of his background. As soon as you become a head coach, you are responsible for the entire team.
The biggest argument against moving on from a prominent head coach tends to be fear over what happens next. And it’s not unfounded. Rarely do teams successfully move on to their next great head coach, just as with the quarterback position. Chances are your first try will be a whiff.
At the moment, there are only five head coaches who have been in their current position since before 2017. There are 18 current head coaches who have been hired (or are acting as interim head coaches) since 2021. Many of these teams had a predecessor who didn’t last much longer.
For Jones, Tomlin isn’t the problem. The defense isn’t the problem. While they gave up 21 points to an awful New England Patriots offense in the first half on Thursday, they had the best scoring defense leading into that game since Week 5.
“You know what the problem is? Kenny Pickett and Mitchell Trubisky”, he said. “What we have seen from Kenny Pickett [and Trubisky]…they’re not going to take you to greatness. They may help you continue to have these winning seasons, but they are not going to win you playoff games and get you to Super Bowls”.
While it’s possible for there to be multiple problems, the quarterback position certainly appears to be one of them. Neither Pickett nor Trubisky have looked like franchise pieces since arriving in Pittsburgh. Pickett is still early in his career, but he has been unconvincing. He has the worst touchdown percentage in NFL history among all quarterbacks with 500 or more pass attempts.
