Coach Tomlins Biggest Coaching Problem?

IMO

You cannot play the numbers and your gut! It's one or the other and you ride it the whole game. Only possible mix up you can do is numbers then gut late in the game but not gut all game then numbers late like he did yesterday. Going for it on 4th and 2 pt conversions all game. It was a touchdown or bust type of game. Your decision making already put your defense in bad situations all day so they had given up points. Then you want to play the numbers and take a FG and rely on them to get a stop!? All season he has been zigging when he should zag. It cost us the Ravens and Bengals game. It did win them the Chargers game so he's 1-3.


Discuss. What's his biggest problem in your opinion?

 

Yes he should have gone for it on 4th down. I did like seeing him more animated and talking to the db's (even though it didn't appear to do any good). I'd say his biggest issue is a tie between being so loyal to players (Vick, Blake) and the clock/to management.

 

I agree with the first two posts. Many things as mentioned all add up to costing games, probably now two games this year.

Even a high school coach could have done better with clock management this year. Not being bold when he should (like not going for it on 4th and goal yesterday) and whimping out when he should not is hurting us bad. If we did not get 4th and goal, the Seahags would have been pinned back, and we would get another chance with better field position IMO. Maybe something good happens for us with them pinned back.

The amount of time in the game left, the unlikely chance of the Seahags sustaining a long drive all pointed to going for it. Tomlin seems to do the exact opposite of what you should do when you look at the big picture as far as when it is time to take a calculated risk.

He has a loser gut and nobody ever will ever accuse him of being a genius.

 

His biggest problem is that he goes with his gut, and his gut is often wrong, or at least inconsistent. Gut calls are not a way to coach, in my opinion. You need well-informed, rational decision making as a coach. Even aggressive coaching has a plan - gut coaching has no consistency or plan. It will let you down.

Though, my sense is that with Ben as your QB, you may as well go with your gut, as that is how Ben plays (or used to). And our D use to be instinctive (if that is the same thing as your gut) with Troy back there. So it can work, I guess, but it leads to inconsistency, which is what this team is plagued with.

 

His biggest problem is evaluating talent and letting his coordinators call the plays.

 

Tomlin's biggest problem is himself.

 

The Steelers are a sloppy football team under Tomlin from top to bottom pretty much if you look at them. They just do way too many dumb things at key points in games and I think it's a big reflection on Tomlin. I don't think Tomlin should be fired or anything yet but I will say this going 8-8 and missing the playoffs and not winning a playoff game going on 5 years at some point has to start having some accountability and is just not going to be good enough anymore.

 

As a coach myself normally you go into a game with a plan. Then the goal is to stick to that plan, no matter the situation. In watching Tomlin it seems he doesn't necessarily have a plan in terms of overall situations. If the plan is to be aggressive, then be aggressive in all situations. If the plan is to be conservative and play the numbers then go that route. But jumping back and forth make it difficult to get a consistent result from the players. Football is much different than basketball in terms of gut calls but you can't expect to get everything right when shooting from the hip all the time. It would be one thing if he would learn from his mistakes but clock management shows he isn't so far. I think he gets caught up in the emotion too much at times and that clouds his judgment. That is the toughest part of being a coach. Knowing when to be emotional and when to dial it down and make the smart call.

 

I think in this regard "sloppy" and "stupid" can be interchanged equally. And that is reflective of the top dog himself. This team plays very sloppy/stupid.

 

Tomlin's biggest problem was revealed in his first press conference after he was hired:

"I'm a fundamentalist as opposed to scheme."
--Mike Tomlin

 

I believe that all coaches coach with the gut or intuition at times. Coaching with intuition is almost a must to be a good coach. Sometimes coaches make the right decisions and sometimes they don't.

 

Execution wins out over schemes.

 

IMO, Tomlins biggest coaching problem is all the fans who think they can do it better!

 

Obviously, Tomlin's biggest coaching problem is living within his fears. He does so, to the point, he can't even be honest with himself. He won't kick a fg in overtime against the Rats, a fear. He won't run the ball against the Rats last year in the playoffs, a fear. He won't sit a starter when they are stinking up the place, a fear. He won't manage the clock, a fear. He won't force the offense or the defense to make obvious adjustments in its game plan during the game, a fear.

My guess is, we should take whatever he says and just discard it. He is not going to admit fault by himself or his coaching staff. The only thing that ever comes out of that is getting fired. The problem however, is by not accepting responsibility, by default, he places all the blame on the players. People like Ben, go out and accept all the blame, to be a good teammate. Remember Peyton's, "we had protection issues, idiot kicker" comments.

Tomlin doesn't go out and say, "I was determined to go for the fake fieldgoal, to the point that even with the change of quarters, I didn't anticipate the defense's reaction. We should have either lined up and hit them in the mouth with our best players or kicked the damn ball." He doesn't say that because, despite his denials, he lives in his fears.

 

After some reflection, it is clear that his biggest problem is Gilbert (in size) and him hurting his teammates.

 

The Steelers problems come down to personnel decisions more than anything else. How much input that Tomlin has in those decisions I have no idea. Tomlin, Coughlin and Harbaugh all won Super Bowls but now their teams stink. They didn't forget how to coach. The talent level on their teams has dropped. In the Steelers case, the 'Robbing Peter to pay Paul' restructuring plus an array of baffling contacts left them with a defense with a lot of starting players that should be 2nd or 3rd stringers and having to rely on the draft and bargain basement free agents to try to keep them at least adequate and hope the offense can outscore everyone. If Ben and Bell had been healthy all season there's a good chance that the approach would have worked and Tomlin's gambling decisions wouldn't have even been made and the press would be talking about how smart he is.

 

I believe this team has an incredibly low football IQ. The staff in GENERAL is absolute fair game for criticism in regards to that. Carnell Lake should be held accountable for the poor tackling of the secondary. Also Blake played poor technique on the game winning play. He freed Baldwin up to go to the inside by playing outside technique and Tony Dungy said as much on a film analysis. The backers aren't sealing the deal in the backfield even though we have FOUR first rounders at the position. Joey Porter should be held accountable for that. The TEAM in general just doesn't seem to understand situational football at all. There is absolutely nothing wrong with criticizing Tomlin for that. Let me put it this way. Are those who refuse to criticize Tomlin saying that he's basically perfect and beyond criticism?

 

Going with your gut works if you have good intuition and smarts and high football IQ. Going with your gut will get you in trouble if your instincts are poor, or you consistently make odd decisions and they backfire. Gadget plays, poor clock management, and strange field goal decisions reflect gut calls, but gut calls based on poor instincts and low football IQ. The one thing I like is going for 2 - they practice it, and the odds are in their favor. It has a chance to add points and builds confidence.

 

Yeah, the teams football IQ as a whole is low compared to teams like the Patriots. That falls on the coaching and Tomlin. While we are on the topic... Thing that kills me about Tomlin. He's played DB his whole life and was DB coach with the Vikings before joining the Steelers. So in 8 years he has done absolutely nothing to improve this secondary. Some would argue it's regressed. If there was one aspect coming in you think he would improve, it's the secondary. That hasn't happened in 8 years so the question is what is he doing!? What does he do? What does he bring to the team and organization?

 

What has me frustrated the most is the potential this team has and where we mostly fall short could be fixed, but is not fixed.

Blown coverages, missed tackles. Is that all on the players? To me, some of that has to be coaching.

Then there are the gametime coaching decisions that cost us games.

Injuries have hurt, but we have a lot of talent. We could and should have the #1 scoring offense with the players we have if we were smarter about play calling on 3rd down. We could have at least an average defense if the defense could execute smartly and cut way down on the blown coverages and missed tackles. Those corrections would be good enough to win it all.

I see flashes of the potential at times on the defense. The offense mostly just needs tweaks on play calling on 3rd down. I hope we can pull it all together and play up to our potential, but will the coaching ever get smarter?

 

I guess his biggest problem is talking out of both sides of his mouth. If your gonna talk about it ,be about it. We are more reactive to situations instead of proactive that why we look dumb more often than not.

 

I'm pretty sure that Tomlin actually played Wide Receiver in college.

 

Yeah so you would think we'd have a better grasp of our secondary woes seeing that he has experience on both sides......

 

All the money the franchise spends, there is no reason to have to go with your gut like this. Didn't they hire an analyst in the off season?

 

I think it goes two ways. Haley's playcalling often tends to over-think, and try to be too smart. Analysts can tell you a lot, but players aren't statistics (look at how AB played against Seattle - he just had an off day). The information itself doesn't tell you what the best decisions to make are, because those are in-game situations. In those situations, sometimes gut calls work well. But equally, if they fly completely in the face of logic and reason, then they're usually ineffective.

So it's a balance, is I guess what I'm saying.

I think that many of Tomlin's decisions are harshly criticised, and there is a line of reasoning to be seen. Others, though, are just plain headscratchers.