The Real Mike Tomlin

Recently I have seen a lot of criticism of Tomlin on this board and I have seen a lot of people defending him also. I wanted to take a second to point a few things out that may enlighten some and I'm curious what a lot of you think after seeing some of the facts. This may be long.

Discipline

Since inheriting the team from Cowher, slowly this team has become more and more undisciplined. Committing dumb penalties game after game, consistently being careless with the football and turning it over, and injury plagued season after season.

My opinion of this is that Tomlin inherited a well disciplined team with great veteran leadership. His players coach style worked because the leaders (James Farrior, Hines Ward, Aaron Smith, ect...) kept the discipline among the team. The longer we have gotten from there combined the vocal leaders has left Tomlin's style take over and now we are seeing what kind of coach he really is.

As a head coach I believe you are in charge of picking your staff. I look at the trend of injuries on this team year after year and it isn't just a coincidence. I believe it is a poor strength and conditioning program which is ultimately on Tomlin.

Personnel (In Season)

I look at some of his moves an it really baffles me...

-Starting Redman after he hardly played in the preseason and showed very little last season, when Felix clearly showed he was capable of doing well. Then after his poor performance in week 1 he is rewarded by starting week 2. After the Redman injury and Felix showing what he could do Tomlin still went back to Redman.

Redman- 11 carries for 13 yards and 2 fumbles this season.
Felix- 10 carries for 37 yards last night

-Starting Worilds week 1 over Jones. Now after 2 weeks its pretty apparent Jones is a much better player. How could Tomlin not have seen this in the preseason and in camp? It was pretty apparent to me.

-Vince Williams starts last night but was inactive in Week 1. How does that make sense? If he is your number 1 back up why was he not active the week before? Something is wrong there.

And that's just been 2 weeks... Things like this happen year after year lately.


Personnel (Off Season)

Now a lot of people would blame the GM for this, but i'm not buying that Colbert is behind this. I heard Bill Pollian talking on Sirius NFL Radio about head coaches responsibility with player personnel. He used the Steelers as an example of one of the organizations that give their head coach a lot of power in this. Besides we drafted great when Cowher was the coach and mixed in some key trades and free agent pick ups to help stack our roster.


Free Agents acquired under Cowher (not originally drafted by us)- Bettis (traded for), Hartings, Clark, Farrior, Cedric Wilson.

Free Agents acquired under Tomlin (not originally drafted by us)- Mewelde Moore, Hartwig.

-We were never big on taking chances on free agents but at least under Cowher he made key moves when needed to help the roster. This combined with a few bad drafts lately, not being able to start the right players (above), and the amount of free agents signed that were originally drafted by us (Spaeth, Bryant McFadden (trade), Randal el, Foote, Gay) leads me to believe Tomlin is not very capable of judging talent.


Key Players acquired under Cowher on the current roster- Ben, Heath Miller, Troy, Clark, Keisel, Ike.

Key Players acquired under Tomlin on the current roster- Woodley, Timmons, Brown, Pouncey, Jones (i'll put him on here because I think he is going to be very good)

-You would think by year 7 Tomlin's players would have started taking over the roster, but we are still relying on a lot of Cowher's player to carry the weight.

Words are just Words

How many of you are sick of Tomlin's clichés. Its really annoying to hear him continue to talk tough, but see no action. Whenever this team has been faced by tough times and things needed to get turned around, he hasn't be able to do it. My opinion is he has lost credibility with his team and they don't respect him. If Tomlin continues to not live up to "the standard" and can't stay "above the line", what will he do, "Unleash Hell" on himself?


I personally saw this coming. I knew that this undisciplined style of football we have been playing recently would continue and now we don't have the talent (due to not drafting good and not patching with a few free agents over the Tomlin era) to overcome this style anymore.

I'm looking at this in a positive way though. I believe with a bad season, early draft pick, and a firing of Tomlin we could re tool rather quickly and be back in contention. First we need to get discipline back. Cut back on penalties and turnovers and get these guys in the proper shape, so injures don't decimate us. Pick up a few free agents (not a lot and they don't have to be stars, but some quality role players that can help out). Add hitting on some our 1st and 2nd round pick and we can be back contending.

 

So are you going on record as saying you want Tomlin fired after this season if he doesn't turn it around? I think that the reason we've not been getting good free agents is because the one thing they aren't is "free" and we have no money because we've tied it up in very few guys. I would like to see what Tomlin and mgmt would do in free agency if they had some money to work with. Don't get me wrong. I think Tomlin has a lot of deficiencies and yes his cliches kill me but he's also sort of dang if he does and danged if he doesn't. We as FANS would LOVE for Tomlin to come out and confirm what we all SUSPECT which is that the offensive line is horrible, the wr's are not true number one guys, the rb's wouldn't be starting for any other team in the league but they are all we can afford right now, Ben and Haley don't get along, there's no real chemistry to this team, the defense isn't generating enough pressure and causing DL's patented and legendary 3rd and longs, and on and on. But the reality is if he did that he would totally lose the locker room and he is in a position where he has to say all this stuff to keep from losing his guys but in the mean time he's kinda alienating a lot of the fans too.

 

Yes, I want him gone. No use saying "if he doesn't turn it around", because its not going to happen. Undisciplined actions and behaviors have already set in and become habit, so there is no turning it around during the season. It will take a new attitude the new coach will have to bring to earn the respect to get those things to change. I'm in favor of everyone (except Lebeau) being axed. I'm actually a fan of Colbert too, but i'm sure he had his part in it also. I just think its the right thing to do to turn it around.

Right now, steelersdepot.com has us listed at approximately 3.8 mill under the cap. We spent 1.3 mill on Redman, 2.5 mill on Sanders, signed foster to a 3 year 6 million dollar contract, signed Gay to a 3 year 4.5 million dollar contract, and Spaeth to a 2 year 2 million dollar contract. On top of that we wasted a bunch of money a few years back on Willie Colon (costing us 2.2 mill this year).

So I would say, yes we could have found money. I agree year after year we are cap strapped but if we wanted to we could find a way. We were always cap strapped under cowher but he was able to add those key pieces when it mattered. I would have taken the pick for Sanders and saved the 2.5 mill. Redman would not be on the roster (especially after the poor production last season). I wouldn't have invested in Foster. I never really felt he was that good. I understand the Spaeth and Gay signings so I won't hate on those but I think had we really could have found better value. I just feel our money wasn't invested well.

I really feel like Tomlin has no confidence in his judgment of talent, that is why he continues to bring old Steelers back in free agency and not bring guys in who were drafted by other teams. I believe this is also why he has trouble picking who the starter is when there is a position battle. He tends to go with what is familiar to him as a default.

 

oh perfect finally somebody that speak good english explained all what i think about tomlin . thanx