This is Mike Tomlin’s 19th season as the Pittsburgh Steelers’ head coach. He’s been a staple of the NFL for years. However, some people have grown frustrated with Tomlin. The Steelers haven’t won a playoff game since the 2016 season, and Tomlin gets a lot of the blame for that failure. While he’s been in Pittsburgh for almost 20 years, Mike Florio recently revealed that Tomlin almost got a different head coaching job before many Steelers fans knew his name.
“I was pushing for Mike Tomlin to be coach of the Steelers in 2007,” Florio said Wednesday on his Pro Football Talk podcast. “Remember, they had the whole, it was gonna be Russ Grimm, and then it wasn’t. I was banging the drum for Tomlin.
“I found out, years later, that there was actually some conversation in Minnesota about telling Brad Childress after one year, ‘Thanks for everything, now leave. We’re gonna make your one-year defensive coordinator the head coach in order to keep him from becoming the coach of the Steelers.’ That conversation actually happened within the walls of the Vikings’ organization.”
Before becoming head coach of the Steelers, Tomlin spent one season as the Vikings’ defensive coordinator. He was young, and that was his first NFL coordinator job. In contrast, Childress was a veteran who got his first NFL coaching job in 1985. However, 2006 was his first year as an NFL head coach and the Vikings went 6-10.
It wouldn’t have been too surprising to see the Vikings move on from Childress, especially if they liked Tomlin so much. The NFL world would’ve been very different if the Vikings had actually pulled the trigger on that decision.
Going back to 2007, the Steelers saw head coach Bill Cowher retire. They looked poised to promote Grimm, who had been their offensive line coach since 2001, to head coach. However, Tomlin came in and really impressed the Steelers in his interviews. That caused them to pivot from Grimm and hire Tomlin.
The rest is history. Tomlin went on to win a Super Bowl in his second season with the Steelers, and he’s become one of the best head coaches in the NFL. Meanwhile, Childress led the Vikings to several middling years. His best season with them came in 2009 when the Vikings went 12-4 and almost made it to the Super Bowl. However, they went 6-10 the following year, and Childress got fired before the season ended.
It would’ve been interesting to see what the Steelers would’ve done had the Vikings fired Childress and promoted Tomlin. Today, some Steelers fans likely think that would’ve been better for Pittsburgh. Despite his flaws, Tomlin has continued to raise the Steelers’ floor. He helped them go to two Super Bowls and win seven AFC North titles. His impact on the Steelers shouldn’t be understated.
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