With a new three-year contract extension in hand, Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin has his future ensured with the Black and Gold.
His legacy is already cemented in the NFL, thanks to his one Super Bowl trophy, an appearance in another, not having a losing season in 17 seasons as an NFL head coach, and more, which will eventually include being the winningest head coach in Steelers’ history.
Those accolades are all nice and will get him into the Pro Football Hall of Fame one day. But for now, Tomlin still has football games to win and championships to compete for.
Knowing that, where does he stack up among coaches in the NFL? The Athletic’s Robert Mays and Jordan Rodrigue tried to figure that out Monday on “The Athletic Football Show,” ranking their top 10 coaches.
For Mays, Tomlin ranked No. 8, while Rodrigue had Tomlin at No. 9, behind names like Sean McDermott, DeMeco Ryans, Dan Campbell and more. The only reason Mays felt comfortable picking Tomlin inside the top 10 was due to the hiring of Arthur Smith this offseason as offensive coordinator.
“I think Arthur Smith is the correct sort of hire and the correct sort of direction,” Mays said of Tomlin among the top 10 coaches, according to video via The Athletic on YouTube. “Even if…it’s not gangbusters…you hire somebody who has done this job effectively in the past to do this job for you. And so we’ll see how that goes. Obviously the quarterback is still a question, but I’m really hung up on their inability to get this right or even look in the correct spots over the last few years. And that’s why I almost kept Mike Tomlin off, but I go back to this: setting the feeling of what your team plays like and what your team feels like. And he does that as well, or better than anybody.
“That defense is elite every single year. And their ability to kind of set that and have that be the foundation of who they are has been really impressive over the last several seasons.”
Entering Year 18, Tomlin continues to find ways to win, keep his teams competitive and give them a shot late in the season to get into the playoffs.
Of course, the Steelers haven’t won a playoff game since 2016, so just being competitive and playing meaningful football late in the season doesn’t mean all that much. But as Mays pointed out, Tomlin has the pulse of his team each and every season and finds a way to get the most out of his teams each and every year, especially recently in the post-Ben Roethlisberger era.
Quarterback play has not been good in recent years following the retirement of Roethlisberger, yet Tomlin still has the Steelers competitive and in the playoff picture year after year. He deserves quite a bit of credit for that, considering it’s a quarterback-driven league now. But he also deserves some criticism for that, too, considering he stuck with Matt Canada for too long and believed that Mitch Trubisky and Kenny Pickett could be the answer.
Despite some of the mistakes offensively, Tomlin still finds a way to have the defense playing at an elite level, especially last season. The Steelers lost so many pieces at linebacker and at safety and still got into the playoffs. For Rodrigue, Tomlin’s ability to put players in positions to succeed and get the most out of them are his best traits.
“I think that that is where Mike Tomlin certainly stands apart,” Rodrigue said. “His understanding of what makes defenses special, how to get players in positions to be successful, even at times missing personnel, even at times rotating through injuries, dealing with things that an offense that time and again set that defense up for failure. And still it was like if…you could say if you score 14 points, you will beat the Pittsburgh Steelers at certain points of his career, right?
“Because they weren’t scoring points on offense. But also, if you’re saying that, you’re in for a fucking dog fight. Because that’s how it is every week. It will take everything you’ve got simply to get to 14 points.”
That about sums up Mike Tomlin perfectly. He wants to play those low-scoring, ugly games that rely on defense. He’s a defensive-minded coach, one who cut his teeth defensively in the NFL before landing the Steelers’ head coaching job.
He still finds ways to scheme things up well and get quite a bit of success from his defenses. But now, in today’s offensive-driven league, he needs to find some balance. That’s where the Smith hiring comes into play and will be huge, along with the offensive additions this offseason, including Russell Wilson and Justin Fields at quarterback.
Check out the full episode with Mays and Rodrigue as they pick their top 10 coaches in the NFL.
