Every passing season is a referendum on Pittsburgh Steelers HC Mike Tomlin. Despite the results coming up the same every year, he survives every time. In an organization that doesn’t fetishize stability the way Art Rooney II does, he may have lost his job some time ago. Not in Pittsburgh, at least not now, but that doesn’t mean the issues aren’t there.
The one feather consistently in Tomlin’s cap is the idea that he is a player’s coach. His message resonates with the players, even as he approaches his third decade on the job. But what is that message, and is it the message the Steelers need to hear? Rooney seems to think so.
“I’m not surprised by Art’s answer. I also think that he probably is right that guys still listen to what Tomlin is saying”, Aditi Kinkhabwala said on 93.7 The Fan yesterday. “They still want to rally and fight for him. His message might be resonating, but sometimes I wonder if it’s the wrong message. They’re listening, they’re bought into what he’s saying, but he’s not saying the thing that’s going to make them get better”.
This is actually the most interesting time to ponder the subject, thanks to the NFL’s intrusion. The league and HBO strong-armed the Steelers into participating in Hard Knocks this season, giving us some of our most intimate glimpses into how Mike Tomlin interacts with the players.
On the screen, everything appears to work well enough. We even see glimpses of what players talk about, claiming that Tomlin always tells them exactly how the game is going to go, whether good or bad. But the NFL is a results-based business, and Tomlin and his messaging isn’t getting the results.
“Whether that’s he’s being too conservative, whether that’s the schemes that he’s putting in, the personnel that he’s using, it’s like he’s studying for the test, but he’s studying the wrong material”, Kinkhabwala said of Tomlin. “I think that he’s still charismatic, he’s still a player’s coach, but it feels like he’s teaching from old material and that makes it difficult to keep these guys engaged and seeing results”.
I don’t think there is any issue with Tomlin keeping players engaged, for what it’s worth. In fact, I think it’s quite transparent that, on the whole, he gets players to buy in. The bigger question, as Kinkhabwala initially questioned, is whether what Tomlin is selling is still viable.
With the Steelers mired in an eight-year playoff drought, there is no simple answer. In a vacuum, Tomlin is “too good of a coach” to have such a stain on his resume. Yet there it is, and why? Some of it’s talent, some of it’s misfortune. Some of it is Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes, or the Bengals and Ravens. But some of it has to be—has to be—Mike Tomlin.
