Mike Tomlin In Sports Illustrated

Peter King finally wrote something about the Steelers that I wasn't shaking my head at and disagreeing with every other sentence. He wrote the NFL feature story this week in SI and it's about Mike Tomlin taking over for the Steelers. The article is called "Third Man In" and it's a pretty good read. Some things to note: Tomlin has but three photos in his office and 2 of them are meat and potato type plays being made by Steelers. One is a gang tackle against the run and the other is Whaaneca opening a huge hole on offense....the other is a closeup of the trenches right before the snap when the Steelers last played the Vikings. Another cool thing that he does is after practice during the classroom session he puts up a paper on the board saying "The News" and he calls people out who did not give 100% on every play. He's already called out Big Ben and Hines Ward for their performances in a practice. He wants you playing to the whistle on every play and this is his motivator.....staying off "The News". I love it. I only wish it was made public after each game! Also, he benched Fred Smoot last year for not playing full tilt and in retrospect, Smoot admits it was good for him and that he needed it - and that it made him a better player and a better man. Rooney asked him about the Smoot incident during his interview - he loved it that the man had convictions and stuck to them. I think we're going to fall in love with Mike Tomlin and I think cutting Porter set the tone that this was now indeed his team. Michael Silver added a side story about Grimmy and Whiz and how they are getting along in the desert. It touches briefly on them being picked over. After reading both stories, it makes it even more clear that the Rooney family wanted a fresh start and they couldn't get it with either of the assistants. Can you see Grimm or Whiz benching a team leader? Not that they would be taken lightly - but having an assistant move up could be compared to having a substitute teacher take over a class in mid year. Maybe if the Steelers went deep into the playoffs last year or won it all again they could have had Whiz or Grimm take over. I think the 8-8 hangover season demanded a shakeup and a shakeup is what they got. Even the fact that Tomlin wears a whistle on the sideline is cool to me. It seems like he's an old-school throwback and I never really realized last year just how good the Vikings run defense was. I'm not a fan of those types of stats as situational stats and averages are more impressive to me - but there is no doubt they were better with him leading them. Man, I can't wait for camp to start.