When the NFL Coach of the Year award is discussed, oftentimes it’s centered on who has done the best job overall on the year, whether that’s from a record standpoint or overcoming a difficult circumstance.
What doesn’t get talked about much is a significant decision coaches make in-season, putting their team over the top.
For the Pittsburgh Steelers and head coach Mike Tomlin, there’s a very clear decision that should give Tomlin the edge in the Coach of the Year discussions, especially as the Steelers continue to stack wins and look like one of the best teams in the NFL.
That would be the decision to turn to Russell Wilson as the starting QB in Week 7, moving Justin Fields to the bench after starting the season 4-2. Since then, Wilson has gone 6-1 and transformed the Steelers into a top-10 scoring offense that creates splash plays consistently.
For NFL on FOX’s David Helman, that decision alone should be give Tomlin the Coach of the Year award. Appearing on the NFL on FOX podcast earlier in the week, Helman made the case for Mike Tomlin as Coach of the Year.
“I think the best thing going for Mike Tomlin on top of a million other things, there is a very real flashpoint, there is a very real decision that Mike Tomlin made, and I can throw it back to another conversation we had with Jay Glazer this year. Jay reported after the decision to move forward with Russ, Mike Tomlin went at it alone,” Helman, according to video via the show’s YouTube page. “Like, it wasn’t just idiots like me who were afraid to switch quarterbacks. People in the Steelers organization were like, ‘Do we wanna mess up a good thing? We’re 4-2 with Justin Fields, we just beat the brakes off Las Vegas. Do we wanna switch?’
“And Mike Tomlin was like, ‘Hell yeah, we do because there’s a higher ceiling we can reach here.’ And the numbers say it all.”
The numbers with Wilson starting compared to Fields say it all, and that’s not a knock on Fields and the work he did while Wilson recovered from his calf injury.
But at the time of the decision, Mike Tomlin believed there was another level to the Steelers’ offense, one they could reach with Wilson. He wasn’t letting good be the enemy of great, and he’s being rewarded by the decision to turn to Wilson.
The Steelers are scoring over 28 points per game with Wilson at QB. They’re moving the ball consistently, playing complementary football and really looking like a contender, improving on how they looked early in the season with Fields.
That decision by Tomlin was a controversial one. He went about it as a “lone ranger” as there were some inside the building that wanted to stick with Fields. Tomlin’s decision makes him look rather smart as the Steelers have taken it up a notch.
In Year 18 as a head coach, Mike Tomlin has never won the award. He’s rarely received votes, too. In fact, he’s never received a first-place vote for the award, which is baffling. He has just 12 total vote points in the AP Coach of the Year voting since 2007, with five vote points in 2023 and five vote points in 2022.
He had two vote points in 2019, the year Ben Roethlisberger missed all but six quarters of the season and the Steelers still had a non-losing record and nearly made the playoffs.
That should change this season, and in Helman’s view, the decision to change quarterbacks and get even better should be more than enough to win for Tomlin to win the award.
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