Mike Tomlin stepped into a unique situation when he was hired at 34 years old as the head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2007. He was roughly the same age as some of the players, and he had a roster that was battle tested and ready to compete for another Super Bowl championship after just having won one two seasons prior. Bill Cowher had left not because he was fired but because his wife had fallen ill, and he wanted to spend more time with his family.
Normally coaching transitions come when a team is bottoming out, and the new coach is tasked with rebuilding the team from the ground up. That was not the case in this situation.
From the sounds of it, Tomlin knew he had to go above and beyond to earn the respect of his players, and he did just that.
“Tomlin like came in there, he knew he had a good team, he knew he had a potential Super Bowl-winning team, and he knew he couldn’t hold back,” Brett Keisel said on Cameron Heyward’s Not Just Football podcast. “So our first training camp was brutal. I mean, we had a ton of two-a-days. We had a ton of padded practices. But he got it out of us to the point where he is like, ‘These guys are gonna respect me. They’re gonna respect how I do my thing.'”
“No doubt about it,” said Casey Hampton when asked if Tomlin ran them into the ground in Year 1. “But he did it his way. He had to, and he gained all our respect…The second year he learned, and he dialed it down a little bit.”
That first season in 2007, the team achieved a respectable 10-6 record and lost in the Wild Card round of the playoffs to the Jacksonville Jaguars by a narrow score of 31-29. They obviously had much better talent than a first-round playoff exit would indicate as they bounced back and won the Super Bowl in 2008 with a 12-4 regular season record.
Training camp and the allowed amount of physicality and contact has evolved a ton since that 2007 season. Two-a-days are a thing of the past, and the number of padded practices allowed has dwindled with each passing CBA that gets signed.
To this day, Tomlin runs one of the NFL’s tougher training camps. Elandon Roberts spoke about it during his entrance to training camp yesterday. He was surprised they did full tackling in his first camp with the team last year. That isn’t a normal thing these days, but a few coaches still take the old-school approach.
Tomlin had to earn his respect the hard way at 34 years old. He did just that. And now entering his 18th season, he has maintained that respect every step of the way.
