Coach Tomlin Season Ending Press Conference Notes 12/31/12

Tomlin needs to take control and be a leader.

"On yesterdays game-
Pleased with effort of the men, played extremely hard and mirrored a lot of challenges from this year's season. Mentioned a few by name:
John Malecki, Ramon Foster. The young corners- Cortez Allen, Josh Victorian"

You played the 5-10 Browns and they handed it to you in the first half of the game. The D made a 3rd string QB look better than most starters in the league. On many plays your team looked like they were manhandled.

"2012 season was what it was. Certain level of disappointment with sitting here right now. Didn't do enough in the closing moments of close games. 3 and 5 in the 8 games that were 3 points or less. That will produce an 8-8 like record that will have you on the outsided looking in. The good teams are dominant largely in the moments and they do what's required to get out of stadiums with a victory, and we didn't do that consistently enough. We didn't. Offensively, we started off on the right foot. Time of possession, converting third downs, doing what's required in those areas to possess the ball...obviously we were not ascending in those areas in the second half of the season. Our achilles heal."

Why didn't you talk about the sub 500 teams you lost to and how that will change. Wins against the Titans, Raiders, Chargers, Browns (week 12) and we are not talking about 3 point games. For the record one of those 3 point wins came against another sub 500 team the Chiefs.


"On evaluating Todd Haley
8-8 like all of us. 8-8 OC and I was an 8-8 head coach."

Wrong answer coach Tomlin, the team you manage was 8-8. As part of the team that was 8-8 Haley should be evaluated by the head coach
just like all other coaches and players. The standard is the standard.

"Punt return had potential but never really developed.
Brown was limited with his injury the second half of the season, so that never really materialized."

Isn't it you job to make sure the punt return develops with your special teams coach? If Brown was hurt make changes to have it develop.

Here is another quote from Mike Tomlin on Steelers.com
"Coach Mike Tomlin said it’s time to “wrap a bow” around the 2012 season, but what was inside the package definitely is not what any of the Steelers’ players and coaches had hoped for this season"
http://blog.steelers.com/

You should have chose other words, wrapping a bow on the season. Maybe the Grinch that spoiled out team

 

this team just couldnt catch a break when it came to the injuries. everytime 1 guy would return someone else went down.

if they did make the playoffs and had to play next weekend it would have been rough. no Heath, Keisel, Clark (?), Beachum, DeCastro, Wallace, Heyward and Lewis and Ike. thats a lot of key guys hurting.

when the Packers won the super bowl a few years back and they had all those injuries they were atleast getting guys back at the end of the season and going into the playoffs. the Steelers just never got healthy. that combined with the issues on offense, this team really never had a chance and certainly wouldnt have been a huge threat if they did manage to sneak into the playoffs.

 

He also said "Happy, if you will, New Year."

 

Best thing since sliced bread, yea get real! He is, who we thought he was.

 

I guess people wanted Tomlin to come out and sell out Haley and his other coaches and players. That's just not going to happen, that's something Dave Wannestadt (sp?) would do, and he sucked as a head coach.

 

tomlin is the first accountable for the failure than start the others

 

Even if we had turned those 3 points losses into 3 point wins, that would not have been enough. We should have dominated those teams and others, which is a telling sign. Sorry, but I think we're far from a SB contending team. Maybe we just hope Ben outlasts Brady and Manning and we sneak one more in down the road.

 

This to me is a big part of what the problems with this team are. He's so intent on being calm and cool and emotionless... well it players have come to reflect that. This group of players look like you just woke them up from their afternoon nap. There was hardly any fire from this team on either side of the ball.

 

I'm sick of hearing Tomlin talk about needing to make plays in the closing minutes or games, or for us to win the close games. Why not preach about putting our opponents away early so we don't have to make a big play in the final moments of the game? Why not come out and talk about getting early leads, keeping our foot on the gas, etc. Tomlin's focus always seems to be on winning close games by making plays in the final minutes. It's no damn wonder we haven't been able to blow out anyone since he came to town.

 

He focuses on it because that's where they often seem to find themselves but to suggest that it's intentional is silly. If given the choice I'm sure he'd like to be up on the opponent by 21 points at half time versus down by 10 which seemed like the norm in the last part of the season.

 

Of course it's not intentional, but that seems to be his frame of mind, and as the leader, the team will go where he goes. If his frame of mind is to win close games by making plays in the final minutes, then we're not going to blow too many teams out. Even when we were winning, we scrape by. Something has to change, because as we're seeing, relying on a big play in the final minutes of the game will not result in consistent success.

 

It all starts with being better prepared. I'm sorry ,but with the way we played this year we never seemed to be ready to play. Even the players spoke about this as well. How is that possible?

 

What has happened in the past under different coaches is irrelevant. Even if we've been doing it this way for 100 years, that doesn't change my expectations. Besides, under Cowher, we had a very conservative offence with mostly mediocre QB's. We didn't have the ability to put up a lot of points. With the talent we have, and with the new rules in the NFL, we should be putting up 30+ points against most teams in the league.

But we'll go where our head coach takes us. Cowher wanted us to get a lead and then use Bettis to run out the clock and so that's what the team did. Tomlin apparently wants us to win close games in the final minutes, and that's a pretty risky way to play the game. While I have no doubt he'd rather us get a big lead and maintain that lead, that doesn't appear to be where his focus is.

 

typical tomlin it is what it is... the standard is the F ing standard ... double talk BS..

HINES

 

Hey the Bears canned Lovi Smith, respectable HC
with winning record took team to superbowl, stlll **** canned him.
so anything is possible. We are all watching Coach T. How about
being proactive in position coaches and player development and leadership qualities
and then clock management, situtational football, motivating players, then we can talk in
terms of being a great coach. I have given him long enough I am tired of his bull ****
he don't impress one bit. Of course this just my opinion, he is who I thought he was.
all talk and no action, just as I suspected.

 

Well the Bears aren't the Steelers and Tomlin won't be gone unless (A) He has multiple losing seasons (B) Has some kind of nagative off the field episode or (C) Decides to leave on his own. Me personally I can take him or leave him. Unlike a lot of folks on here I believe more often than not it's the players who make coaches look good or bad and not the other way around. A terrible coach with great players can win a lot of football games and that holds true from high school ball right on up through the pros. Think about it. You see some of these same coaches recycled around the league year after year having success in one place while failing miserably in others. It's the players folks

 

Interesting that he mentioned Malecki and Victorian. I wonder if we'll be seeing these two in black and gold again? Victorian stunk up the place in his first game, but he was way, way out of his depth. Does he get another chance next year?

 

i agree is a players ..but who draft players , who put them in right position to play (james harrison question one week ago ), who motivate them , who sit them , who hire and fire coordinators ....

 

Agree with you here - except - even Bill Cowher had 3 out of our teams 7 losing seasons in the last 42 years. Two of those seasons were back-to-back. That means the great Emperior Noll had 4 losing seasons in his tenure (I think the first two years are left out). So - even back-to-back losing seasons wouldn't necessarily get Tomlin canned, as some want.

Regarding Tomlin. I know I'm an ardent supporter of his, and I understand people getting tired of his "Tomlinisms", but we all have them. What I like about him is that he keeps his "issues" with players and coaches in-house. He doesn't air grievances in public. While it is frustrating to us that he often speaks in generalities and riddles, I really feel that it is his way of keeping things that need to be kept private in his office. The players have also followed that model. If you listen to many of their comments to the media after games, they follow right along with Tomlin's model. Ben may have slipped when he complained about the play calling a couple of weeks ago, but it is amazing how little we really know about what goes on in the locker room and behind closed doors with this team. Living in Cleveland, there is ALWAYS someone going public with something or other, so I see the difference very clearly and I prefer Tomlin's way of doing things. I guess it is a preference, and when you have a frustrating season, of course those who do not like that style are going to speak up. I guarantee that if we make a run at the Super Bowl next year, we won't have people coming on here and mocking the Tomlinisms. They may not be singing his praises, but the issues with the way he communicates will go away very quickly.

 

This final press conference was pretty disappointing IMO.

 

incredible , tough is watch tomlin slap head players after every play