What Does a McCarthy Offense Look Like?

I don't know. I just don't see the difference between this as being a coin flip:

Tomlin: 4 of 19 seasons with a playoff win, with an 8-12 playoff record. With Ben for 15 seasons. 193–114–2 (.628) regular season.
Cowher: 8 of 15 seasons with a playoff win, with a 12-9 playoff record. With Ben for 3 seasons. 161–99–1 (.619) regular season.

 

Super Bowl record for both is 1-1

 

The data are pretty similar (as you've shown here). Objectively, they're quite close. The biggest differences are that Tomlin was better at getting into the playoffs with teams that weren't great. And Cowher was better at winning games in the playoffs.

It might be recency bias, but my guess is that the Steelers were favored in the playoffs more under Cowher too.

Tomlin a little better in the regular season. Made the playoffs a higher percentage of the time (IIRC). Didn't win as many playoff games.

Cowher better post season record. A little worse in the regular season.

Tomlin had Ben for longer. But also had him at a higher percentage of the cap, which made the rest of the team worse. Took over the team after a dip in performance despite a good roster. Also coached in a league where Marty-ball type football (which Cowher was still playing even with Ben) worked less and less.

Cowher did more without Ben. His biggest pre-Ben succes was with "Noll's players" pre-Ben...not sure if that discounts his success the same way people discount Tomlin's. Less QB talent, and he seemed to prefer that (Rooney said Cowher wanted an OT instead of Ben, Cowher said that's not true...but waited until after Rooney passed to say it...my guess is that it just means that there were discussions and Rooney's vote was for a QB). Did a great job (along with Tom D IIRC) identifying that Bettis was available and the perfect Marty-ball back. Several soul-crushing playoff losses at home, but they were earlier in his career and he went out on top (especially since many mostly forget his last season).

Both well above average NFL coaches. I don't think either deserves to be in the hall. But IMO Cowher got in because of the special class and because he's a prominent figure on one of the three main companies that were paying the NFL's bills at the time. My guess it that they will eventually put Tomlin in too. Especially if he's also successful on TV like Cowher has been. If it were up to me, he wouldn't get in. Cowher wouldn't have either.

Noll obviously deserves to be in. And while both Cowher and Tomlin were well above average for a long period of time in the NFL, I think they should be in the "Hall of Very Good". Just like Ward, who is among my favorite players I've seen play for the Steelers. But he's just not quite good enough for the Hall. Which is fine. I don't need the HoF to validate whether players I like a lot were good.