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The lethal combination of Tomlin and Rooney

Discussion in 'Steelers Talk' started by TrueFan, Jul 15, 2026 at 7:54 AM.

  1. TrueFan

    TrueFan Member

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    I'm certain that this has been discussed ad nauseum by bits and pieces but I haven't seen any comprehensive summary. Below are some of the "other" facts about Tomlin, which Rooney allowed, nearly bringing a once respected franchise to it's knees.

    Sorry if it's old news, I just haven't seen a complete representation.

    Tomlin facts:

    1. Tomlin was a snake charmer. The #1 goal of every NFL player is to make deep playoff runs and win a Super Bowl. Tomlin made pro-bowl, and hall of fame players, want to play for him "only" despite the simple truth that Tomlin couldn't win playoff games.

    2. Tomlin fostered annual discipline problems. Martavis Bryant, Leveon Bell, Antonio Brown, Diante Johnson, George Pickens, DK Metcalf. Additionally undisciplined play cost us many games when we had a lead late in games and a personal foul would extend the opponents drive allowing them to score. Players loved playing for him because there was no discipline.

    3. People want to put Tomlin in the Hall of Fame because he never had a losing season. With the talent Tomlin had to work with, his total body of work is an abhorrent failure.

    4. Tomlin wasted endless amounts of talent and countless careers.

    5. Tomlin’s ego was bigger than the team. Every coach with NFL credibility was let go; Mike Munchak, Dick LeBeau, Bruce Arians, Todd Haley, and replaced by totally inept staff because Tomlin didn't think he needed anyone's else. Randy Fichtner, Mike Sullivan, Matt Canada, Arthur Smith, Keith Butler, Teryl Austin

    6. Highest paid defense in the league couldn’t stop anybody (overpaid or undercoached?)

    7. Poor clock management

    8. Historic poor playoff record. Noll's was .667 (after inheriting the worst team in the league). Cowher's was .571. Tomlin's was .400 (after inheriting a super bowl team) .312 after year two.
     
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2026 at 11:13 AM
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  2. KnoxVegasSteel

    KnoxVegasSteel Well-Known Member

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    :facepalm:
     
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  3. Steelersfan43

    Steelersfan43 Well-Known Member

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    For your point 2,just another example

     
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  4. forgotten1

    forgotten1 Well-Known Member

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    #82 ?????
    Must be Martavious Trybans

    The REAL STEELER ISSUE is issuing 82 to any fvckwad
    believe Yancey Thigpen was the last worthy


    [​IMG]
     
  5. Blast Furnace

    Blast Furnace Staff Member Mod Team

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    I feel Jeh will recant his “welcome” greeting.
     
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  6. jeh1856

    jeh1856 Chilling by the pool

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    He’s new
     
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  7. jeh1856

    jeh1856 Chilling by the pool

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    Your certainty is correct
     
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  8. KnoxVegasSteel

    KnoxVegasSteel Well-Known Member

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    His take certainly isn't. Even as a member of the FMTI club, I'm saying get outta here with that garbage. Damn.
     
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  9. TrueFan

    TrueFan Member

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    Thankfully, facts are facts, new or old.:smiley1:
     
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  10. Pittsteely9

    Pittsteely9 Well-Known Member

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    I may have mentioned these things a time or two or 7890…..
     
  11. KnoxVegasSteel

    KnoxVegasSteel Well-Known Member

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    While I share your sentiments about MT, much of what you wrote is opinion not fact. Not to mention, it has all been thoroughly discussed, debated, argued, and beaten up around here for a decade. And as someone who celebrated when he "walked away", I'm curious what exactly you're trying to accomplish with this thread?
     
  12. TrueFan

    TrueFan Member

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    The facts are pretty easily verified and while I'm sure bits and pieces of them have been discussed I did a fair amount of research and I could not find a complete compilation which showed just how damaging Tomlin's time here was.
     
  13. jeh1856

    jeh1856 Chilling by the pool

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    @KnoxVegasSteel has my back
     
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2026 at 1:01 PM
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  14. jeh1856

    jeh1856 Chilling by the pool

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    Let me help you

    One more Super Bowl win more than The Browns have had in 82 years

    During his 19 seasons as head coach, Tomlin never finished with a losing record, the longest streak in NFL history.

    Hope this helps education wise new guy

    And before you start babbling I wanted Tomlin gone before the Jaxonville game
     
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  15. jeh1856

    jeh1856 Chilling by the pool

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    I must have missed this :smiley1:
     
  16. TrueFan

    TrueFan Member

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    Comparing anything to the Browns, in a positive light, is rather foolish, regardless of what the basis is.

    Touting one fact while ignoring the Sea of others is not very educational.

    But thanks for the help:smiley1:
     
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  17. jeh1856

    jeh1856 Chilling by the pool

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    Are you a reincarnation of a previously banished poster or is this a breeding issue
     
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2026 at 2:57 PM
  18. NorthernBlitz

    NorthernBlitz Well-Known Member

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    1. The premise that the #1 goal of every team is to make a deep run is false IMO. While this is certainly what fans want, the #1 goal of every football team (which is a business) is to maximize profit.

    The business model of the Steelers since at least the beginning of Cowher's tenure here has been to do what you can to make the playoffs every year. Rooney (not just this one) seems to believe that having a consistently competitive team is the best way to maximize profits over the medium to long term in a small to medium sized market like Pittsburgh (22nd largest market in the NFL)

    By getting into the playoffs as often as possible, they hope to catch lightning in a bottle every once in a while. And since they are tied for the most SBs in the league, I guess we can't fault them.

    2. If you want to see discipline issues, look what happened to players after they left here. Did Tomlin cause the discipline issues with these players? Or did he hold guys like AB and DJ together as long as possible...then they completely imploded after they left. There's even examples of guys like Timmons, who appeared to be completely normal here. Then had a mental breaks after they left. What happened to Sutton after he left the Steelers? How about Claypool? Pickens played well in Dallas for sure. And maybe he'll buck the trend for WRs here. But this off-season isn't going great for him. Time will tell.

    3. I don't think Tomlin should go into the hall. I don't think Cowher should be there either. I think the bar for non-players should be very, very high. But the people who vote on these things apparently disagree with me. So Tomlin probably gets in eventually. He'll certainly have to wait longer than Ben after he becomes eligible IMO. Ben already put Cowher in the hall. So he may put Tomlin in as well.

    4. I'm sure that this has some truth to this. But how does he compare to other coaches who are of a similar tier? And even a guy like Reid...how many careers did he "waste" before winning the lottery with Mahomes?

    5. I think this probably became more true over the course of his career. This is why I like how the Steelers hired Cowher and Tomlin young (both probably a little under-qualified with good upside). They put good coordinators around them and molded them into the kind of coaches they wanted (see point 1 for what they wanted).

    6. Their D was expensive because it has been old and we've been spending so many premium draft picks on offense. If / when we start spending premium picks on D again then the cost of the D will go down. The cap is basically fixed each year. And we didn't have offensive players to spend it on when we had all the premium positions on offense on rookie contracts (e.g., QB, OTs, WRs, etc). In the Canada / Kenny years, a big part of this was also that the offense was brutal at staying on the field. So the D had a very high number of plays. I do think that this flipped last year. Where the D had lots of plays because they sucked at getting off the field. Similar issues on the defensive trenches that we saw with the OL at the end of Ben's career IMO. Didn't prioritize the big guys. Sucked at stopping the run. Imagine if Cam had a normal aging curve...

    7. Certainly issues here. But my guess is that he was better than average here. Would need to somehow analyze this. People complain about challenge flags too. But with the league auto-reviewing everything important, challenge flags are mostly just timeouts after bad plays, with some chance that maybe it gets overturned. I do think we should have paid to have a "quality control" guy to be laser focused on clock and challenge issues. But some combination of Tomlin + Rooney seemed to feel like having a dedicated guy for this was a waste.

    8. This certainly looks bad on it's face. Although I also think that he's getting "penalized" by this metric because he would get teams to the playoffs that didn't deserve to be there. I also think that as the league became more and more QB focused, not having an above average QB really hurt us (post Ben's injury). As always, it's worth noting that Ben and Tomlin have the exact same playoff record when Ben was playing under Tomlin. In those games, I think Ben deserves more credit for the wins and more blame for the losses than Tomlin does. Because QB >>> HC. Ben was a high variance player. And we lived and died by whether good or bad Ben showed up in the playoffs.

    Edited to add: I'm really surprised that coaching tree and Rooney rule comments were left out of the OP. You left some of the squares on the BINGO card open here.
     
  19. TrueFan

    TrueFan Member

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    A breading issue?

    As in breading on a chicken wing?:smiley1:
     
  20. S.T.D

    S.T.D Well-Known Member

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    Here is a fact for you.
    Tomlin went to two SBs, and won one.
    Tomlin had a 10.5 wins a year average over his career.
    Tomlin was the HC of one of the only 5 teams who made the playoff 5 out of last 6 years, and unlike the other HCs with franchise Qbs, he did it with Mason, Old Wilson, Fields, Pickett, Trubisky, and old Rodgers. All of who can't keep starting jobs elsewhere, or had losing seasons right before they came, and then lost their jobs after they left.
    Now I hope McCarthy will be the greatest HC we ever had, but Im not an idiot, and know how hard it is to actually win in any sports so I don't feel the need to downgrade what a past HC did knowing how hard what he did is.
    I wonder what Your old name on here was?
     
  21. Blast Furnace

    Blast Furnace Staff Member Mod Team

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    In regards to discipline, AB was already spiraling when he left here. The pitching furniture off the balcony happened while he was still here and then he was set over the edge because the team dared vote JuJu team MVP although I dont recall if that was before or after the balcony episode.

    Regardless, I don't think Tomlin was controlling AB, I think he was just letting him do what he wanted which reached a point where it wasn't sustainable. Which would back up comments by ex players like Haden who recently said there was a looseness in accountability.

    We all know QB’s get special treatment but he would let other players get away with things as well. When players who follow the rules continually see other players get away with ****, that sets a bad tone and resentment will set it.
     
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  22. KnoxVegasSteel

    KnoxVegasSteel Well-Known Member

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    I think you missed my point. The majority of what you wrote is your opinion with a few facts sprinkled in. And if your point was to merely compile a list of MT's shortcomings, like I said, we have covered this ground ad nauseum for many years, as you alluded to. And quite frankly, the list is even longer than what you posted. Here's a fact for you: Tomlin is gone and no longer the HC of the steelers. I, for one, am happy about that and looking forward to the future with the current staff and players. That last part was my opinion, just to help you understand the difference.
     

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