Winning in the NFL doesn’t come from doing the easy things. It comes from doing what’s difficult and doing those things well. Bill Belichick didn’t win all those Super Bowls by clapping and telling his players they did a good job. He did it by pushing his best players to be better. While he may have been cutting some corners, too, the point is that no matter how incredible a player is, a great coach always pushes them to be better. Mike Tomlin seems to understand this perfectly, which may be part of the reason for his long-running success.
This weekend, Tomlin is hosting the Next Up Coaches Conference, a program he’s created alongside North Carolina Central basketball head coach LeVelle Moton in order to provide more opportunities for minority coaching candidates. In a video from DeeLovesSports on Twitter, Tomlin talks about the influence former NCAA basketball head coach Bob Huggins had on him. Tomlin was a young coach for the University of Cincinnati’s football team when Huggins was the head coach of the basketball team, and it was there that Tomlin learned the value of pushing your best players to be better.
”Just talking about creating a culture and an environment and upholding the standard by making sure that everybody understood that the very best player was going to get coached, it resonated with me. That’s something that I took from him. I do it to this day. Sometimes, it’s easy to be hard on the backup. It’s easy to make coaching points on a guy that’s seemingly insignificant. Nah, I big game hunt. I checked in at work yesterday going at Minkah Fitzpatrick. That’s what I do because if I’m working to bring the best out of Minkah, the people that’s looking at that, they’re going to fall in line.”
Former players have stated before that Tomlin treats the best player on the team the same as a player destined for the practice squad, and it’s a mindset most guys appreciate. Tomlin doesn’t show favoritism to anyone. He’s correct in saying that if players see him pushing Fitzpatrick, who is one of the best players at his position in the entire NFL, then they’ll work harder, too. If Fitzpatrick isn’t good enough yet to relax, then no one should relax.
The important aspect that separates this style of coaching from being seemingly too hard on players is the honesty that comes with Tomlin. He’s famous for his bluntness in all areas, whether that be on the field or at a press conference. Combining that realness with his drive to push the best players to continue to improve is why he’s been a head coach in the NFL for over a decade.
Belichick treated Tom Brady the same way that he would treat the third quarterback on the depth chart. Now, Tomlin and Belichick are still very different coaches, but this one similarity explains what separates good from great in the coaching world. No one will get lazy, unless they think they’re better than Fitzpatrick, a player who Troy Polamalu gave some of the highest praise to. If you think you know more about football than Polamalu, then have a great time getting inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame.
