There are many things you can say about Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin. You can say he’s consistent because no one has ever had as many non-losing seasons to start a coaching career as him. You can call him a player’s coach because his players love him and other players would love to play for him.
But there’s one thing you cannot say about Tomlin yet. You cannot say he’s a Coach of the Year award recipient. Somehow, in all his years of being head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, people have not seen fit to name him the Coach of the Year.
As Pat McAfee says, “That’s un-fucking-believable.”
“Mike Tomlin’s never won Coach of the Year?…” said McAfee with an incredulous look on Thursday’s episode of the Pat McAfee show. “I don’t like that. I don’t have a vote, but I’d like to cast my vote right now. For reparations for what’s happened over the last 18 years of this entire coaching run for Tomlin. I’d like to vote him Coach of the Year. ‘Cause he should certainly have at least one piece of hardware on that desk, in that office.”
McAfee may be the latest to call Tomlin the Coach of the Year, but he’s certainly not alone. Former NFL G Damien Woody said he should be earlier this week.
And this certainly feels like the year it could happen. Expectations were near rock-bottom for the Steelers, at least as far as expectations for the Steelers get. People speculated that 2024 would end Tomlin’s streak of non-losing seasons. That the Steelers would finish the season last in the AFC North.
Instead, the Steelers are 8-2 after beating the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday. They’re the top team in the AFC North. And they have a chance to secure that non-losing record for Tomlin by beating the Cleveland Browns on Thursday night.
You’d think that an NFL coach who has been the shining example of consistent success in the NFL would have been named the Coach of the Year. But Mike Tomlin hasn’t. And that certainly surprised McAfee and doesn’t sit well with him either.
Tomlin is in good company, though. Chuck Noll only won the award once during his coaching career and that came in 1989 long after the Steel Curtain dynasty. That’s pretty unbelievable, too.
