Tomlin, the defensive master and teacher.

As I mentioned in another thread, It's ABSOLUTELY incredible to me that in Tomlins 400 year tenure here, he has drafted and developed three CB's of any consequence. None of which made a pro bowl. Keenan Lewis, Cam Sutton, and JPJ(maybe). The defensive expert coach. I'd love to hear an explanation of this by a Tomlin guy, or Tomlin himself. I decided to keep looking.

How many safties? Zero! The closest he came was Edmunds.

What about significant DLineman? Cam, Tuitt, and Hargrave. Three! In 500 years! The defensive master! Benton could be a guy in a year or two.

Ok, six linebackers, Woodley, Timmons, Shazier, Dupree, and Watt, and Highsmith. But he did use four 1st rd picks, a 2nd and 3rd on these guys. Payton Wilson could be in a couple years.

That's 12 quality defensive players drafted and developed by the defensive lord in 3000 years. He's drafted 73 defensive players. A 16% hit rate.

To me, that's ****ing insane! WTF?

How do you develop only 3 db's total in 18 years? He's been a DB coach in the NFL for a quarter century. It's unreal.

 

Fraud.

 

"How many safties? Zero! The closest he came was Edmunds."

It is a good thing he drafted Edmunds over Lamar Jackson that year so he has somebody to mention on your list.

 

Actually, the only time he was a DB coach was with Tampa Bay and they won the Super Bowl.

 

FULL MOON WITH ECLIPSE TIME BABY!!!!!!

 

Without being on one side or the other, a few observations

- as @steelersrule6 pointed out, Tomlin was a Db coach for one year. As a defensive coordinator the Vikings ranked first against the run and last against the pass

- if you add William Gay to the list, then consider there is a roughly 16% chance of DBs succeeding in the NfL when drafted below round 3, the success rate of Tomlin is fairly in line with the average. Not great, not terrible

 

And he's had 18 years to improve and hasn't. Most of the guys who drafted the players in that sample are now at Wal-Mart.

 

You know what I'm saying. In college he was a defensive backs coach, he was a db coach for 5 years with Tampa, then a def coordinator, before being a head coach, This is what his background as a coach is in. It's his specialty.

 

He was a db's coach in college, and for 5 years under Dungy and Gruden in Tampa. Then a def coordinator after that. Defense, specifically DB's, are the roots of his coaching skills.

I don't know where you got your 16% number, but the point that I'm making is that Mike Tomlin, who is held in such high regard as a coach, and teacher of young men, has produced 3 decent CB's and zero decent safties in going on 20 years. I'll throw in Gay. Now he has produced 4 decent DB's in almost 20 years. And we're talking very, very average DB's, not pro bowlers.

Forget about your personal feelings, you don't find it odd that a head coach, with as much power as we know that he has, with his background, has produced so few DB's by both number and quality? If it does come down to where they were drafted, then why has he not scouted and drafted them higher? Why is the CB position always one of the weakest on the team? Why does he not prioritize those positions when they're so clearly valuable? And you would think that if anybody could get away with skimping on drafting DB's high, yet continuously producing them, it would be a secondary specialist like Tomlin.


These stats really shocked me.

 

I missed it!

 

My bad - I was reading quickly in the doctor's waiting room.

It's the league average for DBs sticking on teams - though obviously someone picked in the 7th round brings down the average from the 4th round. Which leads me to my point below (which is to agree with part of your argument).

I don't have any personal feelings on this, I said in my post I'm not on one side or the other.

I'm not too persuaded by the 'he's a secondary specialist so he should have done more' because a) he's the Head Coach, not the DB coach; and b) when he had a defense to manage, the secondary wasn't very good. Which would suggest however his time is managed in those more senior roles, it's not particularly focused on DB skill development. Added to that, when he was a secondary coach, he was working with the likes of John Lynch, Corey Ivy, Ronde Barber, Dexter Jackson etc. So I'm not sure developing talent was ever his thing.

That said, I completely agree that the DB positions has been neglected. This is really the issue - like you say, we continuously draft DBs as late round hopes, when the chances of them succeeding are super low. We prioritise LBs and D-line but between Ike Taylor and JPJ there was very little draft investment, and when there was (e.g. Golsen) they got injured or we let them walk (Lewis). We've had some FA DBs who have done well here and not so well elsewhere, but these have been bargain-bucket guys like Antoine Blake.

You get what you pay for, I guess.

 

Is Tomlin really that old? 400 years? Wow..
I'm kind of mixed. Teryl Austin was our secondary coach from 2019-2021 after being fired for having a defense that got steamrolled for 500+ yds 3 straight games.
That's an NFL record.

Scouting and the GM's have a role in picking DB's. (or any other position)
But overall, Tomlin's staff (position coaches) is supposed to coach them up and Tomlin owns the product they produce.

 

3,000 years? Well at least he is still able to collect Social Security. Half the country thinks that’s all well and good though. Tomlin could go 0-17 next season and would probably get an extension. I’ll probably be reincarnated 6 times over and he will still be the Steelers HC working for Art Rooney LXVI.

 

I'm not sure he has the ability to develop raw players.

Actually, knowing him long enough, he probably just doesn't want to, thinks all rookies should be self-starters and coach themselves up. Probably why he wants veteran QBs so badly too. QB and CB are the hardest NFL transition.

Great motivator, absolutely. But every time we draft a project player, it's a disaster.

It shouldn't be surprising that JPJ is the one showing promise. He's got JPSr. to fill in for the coaching staff.

 

When the players of the NFL past and present talk about Mike Tomlin, they 'all' talk about him being a great coach. 'All' of them!


'All' because somebody will offer up a random, "this guy doesn't". 'All' excluding Colin Cowherd that is.


Even other NFL coaches speak highly of Mike Tomlin as a coach. It's only disgruntled Steelers fans that think the man can't coach.


IF... you say 20 years is enough no matter who the coach is, I'm good with that philosophy. But just a blanket, 'he's s bad coach' is dumb. Even for dumb guys like me that's dumb.

 

Tomlins hiring of assistant coaches that can coach up players has been poor.

 

Tomlins elite motivational skills are well known and respected.
However, when don’t motivational skills separate our Steelers ……the playoffs, where everyone is motivated at that time.

 

Cowher was always firing assistant coaches. Seemed like the turnover was frequent back in the 90's and 00's.... Steelers had a new OC every other year and a new DC every 3 years. Wish Tomlin would do the same.

 

I had to actually login to laugh at this one.

 

Those DBs spend more time getting coached by their position coaches and the DC, the Steelers also don't draft the best CB prospects early in the draft. The best CB in the 2024 draft fell to them and they passed on him.

 

Which will be another big mistake if Fautanu can't get on the field and perform like a 1st rounder.

 

Sad that you believe that crap.

 

I’m sure he’s a “swell” guy but for a NFL HC he is subpar by a long shot. The Steelers have been stuck in mediocrity for over a decade. I base my judgement on that alone. I don’t think I need to elaborate any further. All coaches and players love him and for that they look at him as being great. I want results and he is falling short of the results I expect as a Steelers fan. I am not owed that by any means but he can’t see the forest for the trees anymore.

 

In one year look at what the Eagles DC accomplished.

Tomlin Defense is all or nothing, mostly nothing late season.

 

You may have something. There is coaching, they call some 'player's coach', but the thing MT does not have is a coaching tree. Not going to look it up, but was thinking this morning all the great coach's and who they developed under. From the 50's and 60s, to the great's of the 70's and 80's. The lists from these guys are still dominant in the coaching world today, including MT. Whose name(s) appear in his list? If no coach's, the people that teach and develop the players appear, is it any wonder few players are on a list as well.