Calinger: Might be time for Steelers to move on from Mike Tomlin
By J.W. CALINGER
ISL Correspondent
After a month of losses, and a lot of anxiety about a fifth loss against Cleveland this Sunday, the calls for the head of Steelers coach Mike Tomlin have started to get a lot louder. The hashtag #firetomlin is trending on Twitter, and there’s a “Fire Mike Tomlin” page on Facebook (Disclaimer: I am a member of that page). Even radio and mainstream sports articles are starting to question or deny his proficiency as a Head Coach.
To be fair, about 75% of NFL teams have fans who want to see the coach ridden out of town on a rail. In Pittsburgh, though, the phenomenon is more worth noting, because Steelers fans generally take a lot of pride in the longevity of our coaches. Steelers fans will note, with pride, that our team has had only three head coaches since 1969, and they’ve brought us six Super Bowl championships and two more appearances.
In professional football, though, one cannot sit on one’s laurels, and despite a divisional round appearance last year, Tomlin’s teams are widely perceived as underachievers who aren’t properly motivated, especially against teams with poor overall records.
The record against teams with losing records is what frustrates Steelers fans more than anything else. The Miami Dolphins, 1-4 coming into the game, beat Pittsburgh by 15 points. The Ravens, who had a losing record last year, beat the Steelers twice. In 2014, the Steelers lost to Tampa Bay (then 0-3), the Jets (then 1-8), and the Saints (then 4-7). According to a recent CBS Sports article, since 2009, the Steelers have 14 losses to teams with a combined record of 25-87.
Some of the losses are attributable to personnel, or to mistakes by assistant coaches or team captains. I’ve written about how long-time defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau didn’t adapt his scheme when he suddenly had to play rookies and second-year players instead of bringing them along slowly, and about how quarterback Ben Roethlisberger essentially made Bruce Arians look like a poor offensive coordinator by refusing to learn check-downs and timing passes. At some point, though, it’s up to the head coach to solve these problems, and Tomlin doesn’t appear to have much of a knack for solving them.
One common complaint against Tomlin is his inability to choose personnel. That one might be unfair. Going over his last five drafts before this year, according to Pro Football Reference, a person can find quite a few good starters who do rather well. Defensive ends Stephon Tuitt and Cameron Heyward, linebacker Ryan Shazier, running back Le’veon Bell, and offensive linemen David DeCastro and Mike Adams – plus center Maurkice Pouncey, who was drafted in 2010 – were all drafted in the first three rounds in 2011-2016. Other players, including the Steelers’ first two draft picks last year – linebacker Bud Dupree and cornerback Senquez Golson – haven’t played a down all year due to injury. But then, if Tomlin and General Manager Kevin Colbert can choose such good personnel, one would expect better results.
My personal opinion is that Tomlin is too much of a “players’ coach.” To be sure, there are coaches who are fun, or who are moderate in temperament, whose teams nonetheless do very well. Chuck Noll, my favorite Steelers coach of all time, didn’t yell, and other coaches I admire, such as Tony Dungy, Tom Osborne and, in basketball, John Wooden, didn’t either. Somehow, though, they were able to show teams who was boss. If any of them had said to a player, “Gosh, what were you thinking?”, that would have had the same effect as the string of F-bombs Bill Cowher used to unleash on teams.
Tomlin doesn’t appear to want to tell players and assistants what to do, a critical weakness for a head coach. Aside from his desire not to have Roethlisberger add to his repertoire, he didn’t want to tell safety Troy Polamalu to play a more conventional safety role when age took away Polamalu’s speed and consequent ability to keep opposing offenses wondering what he’d do next. While I can understand a reluctance to tell Dick LeBeau how to create a defensive game plan, I nevertheless think our defense suffered because the young players couldn’t figure out what they were supposed to do – and the coach apparently did nothing about it.
The Steelers’ game plans have been dubious at best. Going back to Roethlisberger, he appears fine with letting Big Ben take the team through four-minute drills out of the shotgun, even though one would think that with an offensive line featuring three first-round picks, highly-touted tight ends, and Bell in the backfield, it may be proper to try establishing a rhythm with a running game. On defense, their de facto base has become a 2-4 nickel, in which Butler traded any trace of run-stopping ability for two ends, or even one, with the rest being linebackers. The speed rush still doesn’t reach the quarterback, it’s vulnerable to the run, and the nose tackles we have are on the field so rarely that they looked worn out against the New England Patriots and the Dallas Cowboys, both of whom lined up regularly in power sets.
The secondary has been the biggest concern for Steelers fans. The corners have performed poorly enough that a rookie is a starter now, and works against the outside receiver. When people note their record in playoff years, I usually retort that this is because the other teams didn’t know how to beat the Steelers. For the last five years, our secondary has been vulnerable to passes in the short or intermediate middle, most famously when then-Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow used that exact pass to end the Steelers’ season with an 80-yard touchdown and, in 2014, when the Cleveland Browns scored 24 unanswered points, nearly forcing overtime, then beat Pittsburgh 31-10 later that season, and when the Baltimore Ravens beat the Steelers 26-6 in Week 2 that year and, more importantly, 30-17 in the playoffs. Starting under LeBeau, and continuing to this day, corners give huge cushions to opposing wide receivers, making the Pittsburgh secondary vulnerable to hitches and to timing passes.
Right outside linebacker Jarvis Jones, who is supposed to be the premier pass rusher, is so lacking in talent that James Harrison, a man nearly twice his age, not only comes into the game regularly in his relief, but has two sacks to Jones’ zero. Left outside linebacker Arthur Moats is outperformed by sixth-round pick Anthony Chickillo, who has 2.5 sacks and 15 tackles to Moats’ 1.5 sacks and six tackles.
The players also appear to lack discipline on the field. Wide receiver Antonio Brown was flagged for twerking in the end zone one week, and did something similar the next week, with the same results. Free safety Mike Mitchell treats every tackle as if it stopped the opponent short on fourth down. When someone makes a play, and a fan’s first thought is, “I hope he doesn’t draw a flag”, that’s an issue. I also note that the tackling generally has been poor. As with many teams, Steelers personnel go for a big hit, and when a player is able to dodge or to absorb it, that player usually has the potential to convert a first down. At this point, I think it would do the Steelers well to have a rugby coach come in and teach the team how to raise their heads and tackle at or below the waist.
With all the breakdowns and vulnerabilities that haven’t been addressed over the years, it’s hard to make a case for Tomlin to stay. He won a Super Bowl and made it to one more with a roster mainly consisting of Cowher’s players. Since then, he’s run a team with a lack of proper game planning and discipline. Though the Steelers have had a few good seasons, they haven’t had more than 11 wins since 2011, and their defensive rank, in terms of yards, has steadily fallen – in the years from 2012 to 2016, so far, the Steelers have been first, 13th, 18th, 21st, and 25th in defense, despite a head coach who last was a defensive coordinator.
One line from the “Steelers Polka” runs, “Winning’s a habit, not only a dream”. Certainly, winning is based on good habits like careful planning, mindfulness, precision, and treating every game as if a Super Bowl trip depends on it. While I can’t judge the Steelers too harshly for losing to the Patriots, for instance, I think it’s fair to say that the players have enough talent that with proper coaching, the team could have been 8-1 at this point, easily, instead of 4-5. A good teacher and motivator can make the team 9-0 at this point next year. As a fan, I hope we can get one.
