Tomlin told players he's coming back in 2024

I mean, they went Roman AFC championship game in 16. Then Ben was hurt in 19 and wasn’t the same/good in 20 or 21.

 

It is interesting how much weight people put on “Cowher’s drafts”. There are some old articles out there where Cowher even acknowledges the draft was a collaborative effort to make a final decision.

Many people probably forget that there was speculation that Cowher wanted Shawn Andrew’s over Ben. It was Rooney who stepped in and redirected the conversation to draft Ben.

I think the same is true of Tomlin’s control over the draft. I have never seen anything to suggest that he has the keys to castle. It is also a collaborative effort.

 

Another point on Cowher - before Ben arrived, Bill had coached 12 seasons, 5 of which were 9 wins or less.

Coming off a 6 win season in 2003, could you imagine what would have happened if we drafted Andrews, went with Tommy Maddox, and then watched Ben have a hall of fame career (aka Marino).

 

Yes what he built from the players the GM and his staff picked and the discipline and accountability that he instilled in the team. That is what I think of when you or anyone says Cowher "built" the team. That is what is missing from Tomlin, in fact I believe its under performance based on the talent he has had over the years.

 

The bold is rich because the “blame game” is all people here want to play. It’s 2024 and you’re still whining about what happened in 2017. Like I’ve said, these Tomlin discussions are never had in good faith because people are biased. Any discussion about the man always reverts back to folk whining about the Ben killer B years and blaming Tomlin for those teams not winning anything. It’s not that I absolve Tomlin and put it all on Ben. I’m refuting the narrative y’all push that it was all or even mostly on Tomlin BECAUSE he had Ben. “We had so much talent…….” is the mantra but the reality is that those teams had talent but they also had holes. They also had bad luck. More importantly though, they had a qb that didn’t play up to expectations in the playoffs.

Let’s look at the last 5 playoff games:


‘23-10 point dogs against the Bills without their best player. 2 early turnovers dig them in a hole then they fight back and make it a game.

‘21-13 point dogs at the chiefs. Defense kept it close early then they get blown out after it’s obvious Ben and the offense can’t do anything.

‘20- The center snaps the ball 20 yards backwards into their own end zone on the very 1st play, then Ben throws 3 ints in their next 5 drives to dig them in a insurmountable 0-28 hole.

‘17-We already talked about this Jags game. It’s telling how you discredit them only losing by 3 due to a cosmetic score at the end but give Ben full credit for all 469 yards and 5 TDS. Ben’s stats were mostly cosmetic. When they needed him early and at a crucial time early in the 4th with the game still in reach, he didn’t come thru.

‘16-The Brady-Beli ownership of the Steelers predates Tomlin. They never had an answer for them.


It’s time to let the Ben years go. Once they decided to retain Tomlin post Ben, the slate should’ve been wiped clean with you Tomlin detractors. He deserves a fair shot at the rebuild and judging by the first 2 years, what’s the whining about? Personally, I think that Mason has been mismanaged and drafting Kenny 1st round looks to have been a mistake but those are organizational decisions that involve more than just Tomlin.

Did you come into this season expecting a playoff win with Kenny still as an unknown?

Did you really EXPECT them to win as 10 point dogs in Buffalo?

 

The first words of your post was to say the "blame game" is rich and all anyone wants to do is blame.... then you proceed to place the blame everywhere but Tomlin for each of the 5 embarrassing playoff losses we've taken over the recent years. Keep pushing the blame to Ben (or luck, or just the Pats owning this organization), but just as the QB didn't play up to expectations our coach didn't coach up to expectations either.

Man, I really would love to leave 2017 in 2017, but the same stuff just keeps happening. Different players, different staff, same tune. Like Groundhog Day or a recurring nightmare, 2017 just keeps showing up every January. It sucks. Just like Tomlin haters need to leave the Killer B's years behind, the diehard Tomlin people need to leave 2008 behind. Tomlin isn't some young coach that took the league by storm and had all this playoff success anymore. That guy was less gray and less overweight (like the rest of us), and he's also in the past. Tomlin is now the guy that's taken both really good and decent teams into the playoffs to get their @$$e$ handed to him for the past 13 years. He just isn't an above average coach anymore. There is room for him to change/adapt and improve, but I judge these types of things on "show me" instead of "tell me" and the "show me" is telling me that its not likely to happen.

You do know that the best team in the league doesn't always win the Super Bowl. Underdogs win sometimes. Why cant we? You do realize that we were the first ever 6 seed to win it all? We won as road dogs in every game and won a game where the Colts were favored by 8.5 points. I never truly expect to win any game in the league, but there isn't such thing as an "unwinnable game". If Tomlin is as great as people think he is, surely we'd be able to win a big game whether we are underdogs or not. Unfortunately we've lost in the same manner in either scenario.

I did leave the Ben years behind. That's why I think Tomlin isn't deserving of the praise he gets. He's only ever won anything with Ben at the helm. But, you're right. Let's let the Ben years go. We don't have a Ben Roethlisberger at QB like its 2007 again. But what does Tomlin have but the Ben years? We don't have a high end stud coach like we did in 2007. We have a young team with a few studs on defense, and above average talent in 2024. We have a Head Coach whose best years are behind him and no coordinators under contract. Lots to do before the 2024 season. I'm gonna support the hell out of this organization because I've been a fan of the team my whole life and I have so many great memories with family and the people I care about tied to Steelers games (both watching and attending). But don't act like there are real reasons to think Tomlin deserves blame for the recent shortcomings of this organization. Don't act like these opinions are unfounded or biased based on personal dislike for a man I've never met. Its real. These opinions are based on actual facts and have merit whether you like it or not.

As for expecting to win as a 10 point dog? No. I'd expect us to lose whether we're 10 point dogs or 10 point favorites. Mike T is still coaching this team, and that is going to be the expectation until he proves that he can coach an NFL Playoff game in the modern era without getting his @$$ kicked.

 

Don’t you realize the coach has nothing to do with the outcome of games??? Game plans or adjustments and schemes are not real things. It’s all on the players or president of football operations or the GM….. come to think of it why the hell do we even have a coach?? Apparently they do nothing!! Save the 12 million a year you idiot Rooney.

 

I am fine with that point of view if it applied to the Super Bowls (won and lost), or the good things that the organization does.... but it doesn't. The shortcomings are someone else's fault, but the great parts? All him. Easy.

 

I’m only playing the game that y’all have started. Y’all spin any and everything to blame Tomlin, and I’m just offering more accurate perspectives. Everything I stated in regards to the last 5 playoff losses are facts, not opinions. You’re frustrated because the facts don’t support your anti Tomlin narratives. Y’all use Ben being in the hall of fame to push the narrative that Tomlin underachieved with those teams. I then remind you that Ben was actually mediocre in the playoffs for those teams which were built around him.

The way that you speak with such arrogance and ignorance all at the same time is astounding. You spin everything to fit your clearly biased anti Tomlin lens and it’s obvious that you don’t realize that you’re doing it. You can’t let the Ben years go because your ignorance doesn’t allow you to comprehend what happened. You blame Tomlin because you just don’t get it. The same thing doesn’t keep happening. This is year 2 post Ben in a rebuild. The F does that have to do with 2017?

I don’t base my assessment of Tomlin based on 2008, I’m basing it on the here and now and immediate past. I think that Tomlin has proved that he’s still a top tier coach in just the last 2 years alone. Holding the team together last year after losing TJ first week and limping out to a 2-7 start proved that’s he’s “above average”. So did the job he did this year with everything that transpired. The Bengals didn’t even make the playoffs. The browns and their #1 defense and spot got blown off the field by 30 courtesy of a rookie qb. We’ll see what the Ravens do. You can’t see these things because you obsess over the Ben years on some “gotcha” lol.

I’m ending the reply here my man. All in all, you’re a good debate partner. Later

 

This team has underwhelmed in just about every postseason game it's played in since the Super Bowl loss. the Tebow game the very next year set the tone for the next era of Steelwrs football.. aside from the pounding we put on a depleted miami team in 2016, our other two wins consisted of us squeaking by Kansas city on the back of Boswell's 6 field goals and the lucky burfict game where we should have lost to aj mccarron.

I think the best performance I've seen from this team during that time period was the 2015 loss to the eventual super bowl champion Broncos. Without Bell, D'Angelo Williams, and Brown; the Steelers played a hard fought, inspired game. If not for the late fumble by Toussaint, we probably win that game.

Aside from that game, it's been a series of disappointments. And in the past 5 playoff games, we've fallen behind 21 pts in each game, which is just pathetic. Most of our woes came in the first half. This team just keeps coming out flat and gets shell shocked. You can blame bad breaks all you want, but 5 games in a row is an indisputable pattern, and that falls back on coaching.

 

No it’s not coaching it’s the players damnit. They just keep messing up even though it’s different players over the span of a decade now!

 

All in all you are a good debate partner as I call you arrogant and an ignorant moron

I hope little Mikey pays you for the support. He’s already robbing Dementia Rooney 12 million a year he can share a little.

 

Problem is Blast I don’t think you will be laughing next year when the season looks and ends the same exact way because you know Steelers way and all!

 

Sounds good to me. That's what message boards are for. We have wildly different views backed by somewhat similar evidence, just a different take on it. Its all in good fun. Have a good one.

 

At least he’s here to talk Steelers football and not just run around being a sassy little troll.

 

All you do is give a reach around to Mike T all day in every post. Who is the troll?

 

You’re like a 8 year old little boy. Read what you post.

“All you do is give reach around to Mike T ki ki ki”

What kind of serious grown man talks like that? If we were in a bar or barbershop type environment talking sports, you think you’d get away with saying stuff like that? I have a position/opinion and I support it with facts and logic as I see it. You don’t have to agree.

 

Facts are blaming everything and anything on everyone EXCEPT THE HC….

Got it thanks for enlightening me.

And no I certainly don’t agree with that nonsense but if that’s what you really think fair enough.

 

That’s not what I think nor what I’ve done. Here’s what I’ve actually said

 

You could just say they both have blame which would be fair. Ben didn’t always play good enough in certain playoff games but that could also have been some of the scheme and game planning or lack thereof as well. I just don’t understand how at this point anyone can really defend Tomlin when he has been so poor in the playoffs for over a decade.

 

Why play the “blame game” at all though? Why not just accept that those teams weren’t good enough despite the talent at skill positions? Accept that Ben is in the hall of fame, but he didn’t necessarily play like a hall of famer in the playoffs when the team was built around him.

The diplomacy doesn’t start until someone puts the blame game in proper perspective. Y’all run around scapegoating Tomlin until Ben’s playoff performances are put under the light.

 

Ben didn’t play Defense what is the excuse there? Have you seen the numbers in our last handful of playoff games?

Again I’m not even saying you are completely wrong about Ben underperforming but when you look at the full body of work in the playoffs how can Mike T still being the coach be justified??

There is absolutely no indicator that he can turn this team into a contender since the team he inherited retired 13 years ago. The only time he was remotely close we were beaten by the Pats in the AFC Championship game 5 minutes in. That was not an actual championship contending team.

 

Trying to scapegoat the defenses is the excuse. Post ‘13 they were built as offensive teams to be carried by Ben. They weren’t built to be carried by the defense as were the teams that actually won championships. Ben was making franchise qb money so they didn’t have the same cap space to replenish the defense after the championship core aged out. Those were the Artie burns, Sean Davis, Mike Mitchell years. From ‘14-16 3 straight years they got eliminated from the playoffs while scoring less than 20 points. Those were the prime years of that killer b window.

The Full body of work is why Tomlin is still around and to be extended. You’re biased so you have a skewed view of the whole picture. In just the last 2 seasons alone, Tomlin has proved his worth as a coach. That’s why y’all insist with harping on the Ben years.

While it will certainly be a challenge to get this team back to true contention, to have no hope is silly. I guess you and the other Tomlin detractors are so much smarter than everybody in the Steelers organization and all other football fans who don’t share your anti Tomlin stance.