Across an 18-year (and counting) career as the Pittsburgh Steelers’ head coach, Mike Tomlin has put together a Hall of Fame career.
Before it’s all said and done, he’ll be the franchise’s all-time wins leader, has one Super Bowl on his resume, an appearance in a second, and has never had a losing season.
He’s not without his warts, leading to plenty of criticism surrounding him in the last five years or so as the Steelers hasn’t won a playoff game in nearly a decade. They’ve also gone a number of starting quarterbacks since Ben Roethlisberger retired, and struggled to get over the hump in the playoffs, often getting out-coached.
Former Steelers safety and current ESPN analyst Ryan Clark, who appeared on the “Green Light Podcast” with former NFL defensive end Chris Long, is one of those critics. He believes Tomlin needs to leave the Steelers and chase his Andy Reid moment elsewhere with a new quarterback.
Despite that criticism, Clark made clear Tuesday how highly he regards Tomlin as a coach.
“God talent,” Clark said of what makes Tomlin great, according to video via the show’s YouTube page. “This dude can lay something out that is so complex and make it so simple. And it was, you never go into a game or I never left the game and said, ‘That team beat us in a way that Coach Tomlin didn’t tell us what’s possible.’ Or we did everything he said would lead to a win, but we still lost, right? Like, those things didn’t happen, and the motivation was always there.”
Tomlin was a surprise hire ahead of the 2007 season after future Hall of Fame head coach Bill Cowher retired, ending a 15-year run as head coach of the Steelers. Tomlin went from little-known defensive backs coach in Tampa Bay to a one-year defensive coordinator with the Minnesota Vikings before landing the Steelers job.
Since then, he’s had his ups and downs. But time and time again he gets the most out of his teams, and players rave about him, his coaching style and his ability to connect with them on a personal level.
It’s the X’s and O’s stuff within a game that Clark is blown away by, dating back to his own playing days. We saw that a bit with Hard Knocks footage, too, as Tomlin would highlight matchups within games that would be the difference. They ultimately ended up being the difference, like Nick Herbig against the Bengals and Orlando Brown Jr. in Week 13.
Despite the “God talent” that Tomlin has in Clark’s eyes, he hasn’t been able to get over the hump in the playoffs in the last eight years. It’s been a one-and-done trip time and time again. Though he has a Hall of Fame resume, the lack of success is starting to wear on his reputation.
That’s why Clark still wants Tomlin to go elsewhere to prove how great he is once again.
“I just expected that when we walked off the field, we were the last two people to walk off the field after the Super Bowl in 2011, if you would’ve just told me he’d never get back to another one by this point I’ve thought you were out of your mind,” Clark said. “And I also said that, like, he still has it. I just think he needs his Andy Reid run somewhere.”
Tomlin might still have it. He’s still a good coach, but his teams are continually coming up short and being outcoached in big games. Of course, coaches can only do so much, and it comes down to execution on the field, but the buck stops with Tomlin.
The Steelers haven’t been good enough in recent years and come up painfully short year after year in the playoffs. Maybe Tomlin does need a change of scenery. Or maybe he needs to tap back into what made him successful early in his career. That was leaning on a veteran roster, similar to what the Steelers are seemingly doing ahead of this season.
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