In Fan's post-Titans game review I commented that I wasn't really nervous about our opening game against a very good Titans team. And I listed Mike Tomlin as the reason.Over Labor Day weekend I met up with some of my old buddies for a cookout/reunion of sorts. And I mentioned to those guys (Stiller fans all) that I was cautious, if not a wee bit skeptical, when we first hired Tomlin. But about 4 games into last season I began to trust him unconditionally. I also mentioned how I never completely trusted Cowher. How I thought he did just a few too many things I disagreed with to keep me from"falling in love" with his coaching.
One fellow said, "Cowher was a good coach."
To which I replied, "Well yeah, he was. You have to be a good coach to get a team to the AFC Championship game that many times with Kordell F-ing Stewart as your QB. But he's nowhere near Tomlin."
The other guys all agreed that they had a better comfort level with Tomlin than Cowher. But this one guy kept raising the issue that he liked Cowher better. At first I thought he was just giving me some shit as old buddies are known to do among each other. You know, just to "get me going" so to speak. But nope, this guy actually thought Cowher was better. Once I realized that, I let it go so the topic of conversation could move on to "Was Michael Nesmith of The Monkees a great songwriter or not." Believe it or not we had another guy disagree on that topic as well, geez.
But really, I trust Tomlin more than any coach I've ever seen in the NFL. Somehow, he just sees things the way I do. Of course that doesn't make either of us right, but I have a great comfort level in his decisions. I am even beginning to buy in to him keeping Bruce Arians as OC despite my rants on here about how Arians is the weak link and must go, blah blah blah.
I thought back to the Noll days. And I must admit that I trust Tomlin even more than I did Chuck Noll. To be fair, the first thing Noll did was cut Roy Jefferson who was only the best player on the Steeler roster. I was young and did not understand that it was absolutely the right thing to do. So I was always a bit skeptical about Noll's decisions but I rarely 
questioned them. Whatever he did was working. Speaking of Noll cutting Jefferson, if anybody in Denver had the good sense God gave a mule they would follow Noll's lead and cut Brandon Marshall. But they got a coach following his idol, Belimort, who is not worthy of wiping Noll's ass.
questioned them. Whatever he did was working. Speaking of Noll cutting Jefferson, if anybody in Denver had the good sense God gave a mule they would follow Noll's lead and cut Brandon Marshall. But they got a coach following his idol, Belimort, who is not worthy of wiping Noll's ass. So I am here to tell you that you can relax and enjoy football on Sunday afternoons this season. We may not win them all but we will be prepared to play and you will get a 100% effort from your team. Cowher was good. But put your faith in Mike Tomlin.
And as The Monkees sing in their song (written by Neil Diamond by the way) ...
I'm A Believer!
3 comments:
What I like about Tomlin is that he doesn't ride the emotional roller coaster, or if he does, he hides it well. He instills calm professionalism in his teams. He doesn't take any opponent for granted. And I loved when he said, "We're not defending the championship, we're in pursuit of it." Bingo. Couldn't have said it better.
Cowher was either really up or really down, and therefore his teams were emotionally-based. No disrespect to Cowher -- he did a lot of good things -- but I think that he burned out because of that constant roller coaster.
However, I still think BA is crap. Too predictable, linemen don't seem to know their assignments, etc. But I trust Tomlin to make the right decisions for the team.
I need to see him do it over time, but I, like you, love him and trust him totally. Cowher made a lot of coaching mistakes as well if you remember back to a bad string of Offensive Coordinators. I think Cowher had every opportunity and talent to win 4 Super Bowls instead of one. The loss to the chargers in '94 AFC Championship game still haunts me. Had O'Donnell pulled the trigger a full second faster, who knows what would have happened. Cowher was very emotional and that both helped and hurt him. There were times when he went on 4th down that made me cringe in his early days.....then I used to complain in his latter years when he did the same thing. I will say one thing that can bring a big issue o this debate. "Big Ben". Tomlin gets the mature Roethlisberger at his disposal and Cowher didn't win until #7 was there. Good point by you as Cowher put together unbelievable numbers over his career for Division Titles and wins and playoff wins and prime time wins with the likes of Kent Graham, Jim Miller, Kordell, Maddox, Tomzak and O'Donnel. While Neil is the best of that group by a mile, he is two miles or more from Roethlisberger's talent. I used to get very fired up watching Cowher get fired up and I still love the guy. I wasn't really old enough to appreciate Noll as a coach as I was 12 when he won his last Super Bowl. I can say Tomlin is a better coach, but in my list of favorite Steeler coaches I have more memories with Cowher right now. Tomlin wins another bowl or gives us another 8 year run deep into the playoffs and I'm sure that will change. Everybody's favorite guitarist isn't neccessarily the best guitarist. I'll tell you one thing, I've never been disappointed when Tomlin opens his mouth.
No coincidence that Cowher finally got his ring once he had Big Ben. But for Baltimore ripping Tommy Maddox' arm out of it's socket though, Big Ben never would have seen the field until 2006 under Cowher.
Very true that Tomlin will now get the luxury of having Big Ben in the prime of his career which Cowher never had. And Cowher never would have had Big Ben at all if he had gotten his way on draft day back in 2004. Fortunately he was overruled. Much like Chuck Noll was overruled when he wanted Robert Newhouse but got Franco Harris instead.
Roethlisberger never liked or got along very well with Cowher either. But he, like all of us loves Tomlin. How do I know?
This is how. During the post game interview when Andrea "Big Eyes" Kramer asked Ben, "What does your performance here tonight say to the rest of the NFL about defending your title?"
Ben replied, "Absolutely nothing." That signifies to me Ben's total buy-in to Tomlin's methodology.
Also, not sure if you have heard this story but, speaking of post game interviews...
A reporter asked Silverback how did he prepare for the Overtime period on Thursday. Harrison replied, "I cut off my tape."
Reported said, "You cut off your tape?!?"
Silverback said, "Yeah. When we won the coin toss, Ben came over to me and said 'Don't worry. I got this one.' So I cut off my tape."
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