I hear yaz stillwright.
Just because he has never had a losing season does not equate to an elite coach. Ben is as much a credit for that non-losing season award as Coach Tomlin is.
Coach Tomlin has consistently put his players in bad situations. A couple examples would be the obvious TJ Watt, the obvious B.Jones, other players just off the top Green at center / D.Bush / amongst others as well.
Elite coaches don’t keep sub-coaching around as long as Tomlin did………. O’Canada / Austin / Meyers to name a few….
Elite coaches are usually remembered for their “system / in game decisions / commandment of the game & situation, all of which Coach Tomlin appears to fall short. Is anyone ever going to say “no one could figure out his scheme & game planning”…….. doubtful.
Playoff records do count, PO wins count, building a team counts and yet here we are with a coach who
I've personally been a Tomlin defender, but have not been oblivious to the shortcoming. I want to play devil's advocate here to cast blame elsewhere....
(and admittedly ignored most context as I show my face for my yearly preseason-training camp arrival.)
I personally believe that Colbert had more of a say on roster construction than Tomlin.
Colbert was hired in what, 2000? Tomlin in 2007. I'll die on this hill after Colbert desperately tried to make his mark on the way out with Pickett.
We consistently reached in the later years for position of need - Pickett, Burns, Davis, Bush, Jarvis Jones, Green, etc.
Some of those showed flashes - Burns his rookie year, Bush before injury, etc.
Is there an argument that says Tomlin moved players around to fill bigger gaps? Jones moving to RT got him on the field when we needed a replacement for Chuks, without Jones, RT would have been a mess, because we saw Dan Moore was a disaster at RT while serviceable at LT.
The coaching tree is an entirely different conversation that I have no argument for. (and am not oblivious to for that matter, just like Tomlin's abysmal challenge decisions). Tomlin has never lost the locker room.
My main argument that Tomlin's biggest strength of fielding a "competitive," team is also our biggest weakness. Too good for a high draft pick, too bad for a super bowl run. But, to summarize my argument - I think that goes deeper than Tomlin. I look at who has run the organization, and who I believe had the most say and building the rosters, then see the guy who consistently makes us a fringe competitor. with subpar talent. We as fans overlook the fact that the team needed rebuilt. Defense post killer Bs was horrendous, then the entire OL and franchise HOF QB retired in the span of like 2 years.
I think the organizational leaders are too scared to lose that we've become stuck in the middle ground. Thus why we don't move often in the draft. The head coach gets ALL of the blame, but I think it is much, much deeper than what we want to see on the surface level.
