How many coaches in the NFL are better than Mike Tomlin?

But how many coaches have not won a playoff games in 8+ seasons? Inheriting Bill Cohwers team loaded with soon to be many HOF fame vets is the only reason he won a super bowl in his 2nd season as head coach.

Tomlin has under acheived over the years relative to his talents.

-JB

 

All the BeechNut gums

Quick glance
ended in 2024

 

And going for it on 4th down against the Longhorns probably cost him a Natty.

 

My favorite was Teaberry gum made by the Clark Candy company in Pittsburgh.

 

It is hard to make a fair comparison to say which Coach is the best Coach. Certainly there are some cases where Coach X is easily seen to be better in every area than Coach Y. But, every coach is going to come with their own version of baggage. I would say that you have to consider respect, SB wins/appearances, playoff success, division wins, flexibility, innovation, coaching tree, tenure, making hard choices, game management, developing players, and more.

To me, Mike Tomlin is an above average coach because (and I hate saying this), he has never had a losing season. He has done this despite having seasons where his QB1 has been injured, all manner of other important players have been injured, having subpar players in important positions and still he manages to not see the team go to the basement. How many of you would like to play a musical chair of coaches in the search for the '1'? In the past 10 years, there are 14 teams with an overall losing record in the regular season with the Jets being the worst at 52/114 (.313). How would you like to be in that camp? The Steelers have the 3rd best record at 101/61/2 (.622). Only the Chiefs (.764) and Bills (.626) are better.

But, there is more than a win loss record to being a good coach. Here is what I think are the positives and negatives of Mike Tomlin as I see them from my outsider pov:

Positives:
Exceptionally well liked and respected by the players.
Somehow gets above .500 every year despite injuries, level of competition and any other bricks thrown in his path.
A lot of trips to the playoffs and a few SB trips.


Negatives:
Appears rigid in thinking. Lack of innovation.
Too many cutesy sayings that just talk in circles. (Big changes coming! followed by painting the benches a new shade of the same color).
Appears to have lax discipline on the team as evidenced by a lot of players over the years acting like spoiled kids (outsider perspective....maybe they are just that much of a problem child).
Failure to do much in the playoffs over a very long stretch of time.
Appears to hire sub standard coaches as evinced by the lack of a coaching tree despite a very long tenure as HC.
Poor game prep.
Plays down to inferior opponents.
Overly focused on having a quality defense. Too much money spent here to always be good but never the best, and it is done at the expense of the offense IMO.

Coaches that I think are overall better: Andy Reid, Kyle Shanahan, DeMeco Ryans, Nick Sirianni, Matt LeFleur, Sean McVay

 

This is by far my biggest issue with Tomlin

I agree that his floor is likely the highest in the NFL but the lack of innovation by him is a major issue

 

Tomlin’s pic is actually funny, he may be doing it on purpose. The rest look like two-faced assholes, except for Reid who just looks like a regular garden variety SOB

 

People still seem to be evaluating Tomlin based on stuff he achieved over 14 years ago

 

Sooooo in your opinion Dan Campbell isn’t as good as Tomlin. Your reasoning is Tomlin has a ring (which he used the same players and coaches that were already in place prior to him arriving. Campbell took a team that was terrible before he arrived and they are now one of 5 teams expected to reach the superbowl (plus his coordinators are highly sought after). The way you are measuring a coach is flawed. Around 2010 the Steelers had played in 1/3 of all championship games. The last 14 years they appeared in one. Tomlin is destroying the Steelers. Campbell is building a franchise that people are proud of.

 

I liked
Bubble Yum

 

THIS!

It's not how many coaches are better than Tomlin, it should be asked how few are worse than Tomlin.

Mic drop.

 

None of that comes close to justifying Johnson over Tomlin after six games.

 

Agreed. I wish they had taken a swing at Saleh when the Jets fired him.

 

People should be evaluating him based on the entire resume.

 

KOC isn't winning a playoff game this season and he's got arguably one of the most stacked rosters in the NFL and defensive guru Flores. They are a mess.

 

Outside of the wide receiver position,the vikings are far to be stacked....They overachieve big time last season

 

I think there are parts of his career where this is true. Particularly from 2010 to 2018...although we did go to the AFCC in 2016.

But I think it's really hard to argue this reasonably after Ben's injury in 2019.

 

This.

Just like Cowher, his best trait is motivating players. Which I think is a critical skill for a HC to have in the NFL.

But he's much better served having very good to elite coordinators.

Not sure how many other people listen to the Terrible Podcast. But when we had Flores here, every week Alex was like "this is so cool, they added another new wrinkle to the defense this week".

I think we absolutely need to bring someone like Flores in to have the kind of results we used to have when LeBeau was the DC (for Tomlin and for Cowher).

I do wonder how much of them not bringing in high end coordinators is Tomlin not wanting to vs. Rooney not wanting to pay for them. My guess is that it's a little of both.

 

Spot on! And Tomlin is not the kind of HC that would spend a lot of time coaching his coordinators. This is why his 'coaching tree' is barren as opposed to someone like Reid who regularly meets with the coaches. But I'm not faulting Tomlin for his tree. It's a choice you make. There's only so many hours in a week.

 

Look no further than Cowher with Maddox in 2002-2003. He totally revamped the offense around Maddox/Zeroue over Stewart/Bettis. It worked in 2002... not so much in 2003. The defense was partially to blame for the 6-10 record that year. Defense was in transition... from older players in Alexander, Flowers, Scott, Lewis as DC... to younger players Polamalu, Hope and Taylor, LeBeau as DC the following year.

Tomlin don't have the balls to make the changes necessary to make Steelers elite again.

 

When you just squeak into the playoffs it's gonna be a tough road to the Super Bowl:

Superbowl appearances by seeding.

Here is a percentage breakdown by seed:

#1 Seed - 53%
#2 Seed - 20.4%
#3 Seed - 4%
#4 Seed - 14.3%
#5 Seed - 4%
#6 Seed - 4%
#7 Seed - 0%

And:

No. 7 seeds:

Team Season Opponent Result
Colts 2020 Bills L, 27-24
Bears 2020 Saints L, 21-9
Eagles 2021 Buccaneers L, 31-15
Steelers 2021 Chiefs L, 42-21
Seahawks 2022 49ers L, 41-23
Dolphins 2022 Bills L, 34-31
Packers 2023 Cowboys W, 48-32
Steelers 2023 Bills L, 31-17
Packers 2023 49ers L, 24-21
Broncos 2024 Bills L, 31-7
Packers 2024 Eagles L, 22-10

So winning as the 7th seed is the exception, not the norm.