It will take a bit more to offend most on here. I mean ...it is a messageboard. Post away...pro and con. Positive and negative. Personally I was a Tomlin supporter until a handful of seasons ago...plus a few. Now...I dream of the day he is gone!!!!
You?
I didn't want to fire Tomlin during the Killer B years because I thought it had a bigger chance to be negative in the short term than positive. And I think we had an opportunity to at least compete for SB berths prior to Ben getting hurt. I think we probably would have made another SB if we didn't have such **** luck with critical injuries in the playoffs (Bell consistently, AB, Shazier). But the NFL is a war of attrition. And when you have a QB who's toward the top of the league in cap hit, your depth suffers.
Ever since Ben got hurt, I don't think it makes much difference. Just like I don't think it makes much difference if we start Mason or Rodgers this year.
I think Tomlin is probably better at getting blood from a stone than most other coaches. But our teams simply aren't good enough to compete. The best way to get a good QB is to draft early. And I don't think we'll ever really do that with Tomlin (just like we didn't ever really draft early with Cowher).
I also think there are signs that Tomlin has gone from a young coach that works well with other good coordinators, to someone who might be too into his own press clippings. This is the reason I really hope we don't hire some offensive (or defensive) guru as our next HC. And that we keep with the strategy of young guys who aren't well known but are very good motivators (Cowher & Tomlin).
I still think that firing Tomlin is more likely to make the team worse in the short term. But that's probably what we need. I can't pretend that it would fix all the things that Tomlin gets blamed for. But I do think we need to rebuild.
I also think Rooney will never do it. Because I think the business model of the team is "make the playoffs every year and hope to catch lightning in a bottle in the playoffs". I think this strategy would work much better in the NFC right now because we have so many very good to elite QBs in the AFC. I don't think we can luck our way into three playoffs wins in our conference with at least 2 of those wins coming against elite QBs.
I think we need to do an actual rebuild. But I don't think it will be permitted. So I worry we're going to be the Bills between Kelly and Allen. Never good enough to compete for more than a playoff spot. Never bad enough to have a higher probability of getting a good QB.
As said upthread, I think there are more than enough arguments for firing Tomlin without having to strip him of any accomplishments (or to blame him for anything bad that ever happens).
I think I've said this in previous topics, but I think that Tomlin's biggest failure was not being able to find a way to keep Blount. Especially since it was basically because it came because we massively overworked Bell (which I think was another big issue with Tomlin before we got Warren and he allowed a committee approach).
I think our biggest systematic issue (which Tomlin bears a lot of responsibility for) is that we've been bad at drafting since about TJ. This is bad for a team that strongly prefers building through the draft. And this isn't because Tomlin doesn't care about it. He seems to be at least as investing in scouting as any HC in the league...probably more invested. That it hasn't been good for a while reflects poorly on him.
Finally, I also think that he's done a poor job of selecting coordinators. Like Cowher, he does much better with good to great coordinators. And I think our hiring process for these positions has been poor recently. Although I did like the process for the Smith hire where we went back to hiring failed HCs who were very good coordinators. Fitchner, Canada, and Austin probably aren't guys who should be coordinators at the NFL level (I might be in the minority liking Butler).