The Baltimore Ravens lined up for a 2-point conversion and the tie last Sunday against the Pittsburgh Steelers. First place in the AFC North was at stake. Only 1:06 remained in the game. The Ravens presumably dialed up their best 2-point play.
And Mike Tomlin stopped it. Literally.
Tomlin called timeout right before the 2-point try was snapped. He timed it so the Ravens had to show the beginning of the play, which was Lamar Jackson on the move to his right. The Ravens scrapped that play, had Jackson go left after the timeout, and it had no chance. The Steelers stopped it to win 18-16, improving to a surprising 8-2 this season.
Tomlin’s timeout wasn’t particularly groundbreaking. But in a league that sees game management issues from coaches every week, it was another reminder that Tomlin knows how to win games.
“Thankfully we even saw some of the semblance of the schematics of what they intended to run,” Tomlin told the media after the game. “I think that made them change and go the other direction. And obviously, particularly Mr. Jackson is a little less dangerous when he’s going to his left than his right, so we’re thankful for that.”
NFL Coach of the Year is a weird award. It rarely goes to the league’s best coach, as strange as that sounds. It usually goes to the coach of whichever team most exceeds preseason expectation. The Steelers typically have high expectations. So Tomlin, who has famously never had a losing season in his 18 years as head coach, has never won the award.
It’s probably time for that to change this season.
Mike Tomlin makes the right move at QB
If the season ended today, here are the top six teams in the AFC and their quarterback. One of the situations is not like the other:
Kansas City Chiefs: Patrick Mahomes
Buffalo Bills: Josh Allen
Houston Texans: C.J. Stroud
Los Angeles Chargers: Justin Herbert
Baltimore Ravens: Lamar Jackson
… and the Pittsburgh Steelers: Justin Fields and Russell Wilson
That’s five of the 10 best quarterbacks in the NFL, and the Steelers’ duo of castoffs. Fields was acquired for a sixth-round pick after the Chicago Bears moved on. Wilson was signed for $1.2 million after he was cut following a disastrous two seasons with the Denver Broncos. Most coaches without a top quarterback fail. Some coaches who are gifted a good quarterback can’t get to the playoffs. Tomlin took the spare ingredients he was given and has made a gourmet meal.
Tomlin ended up managing his less-than-ideal quarterback situation perfectly too. Fields started the first six games due to Wilson’s calf injury and the Steelers went 4-2. Most coaches would have stuck with the status quo. It would have appeased the crowd that believes quarterbacks and not teams should be assigned win-loss records. But Tomlin went to Wilson, who was bad for the Broncos and ineffective this preseason. Nobody seemed to agree with the move. Tomlin said he was the “lone ranger” among his staff on making the change.
The offense took off with Wilson, averaging 27.3 points in his four starts. The Steelers are 4-0 since the change. They weren’t picked by many to be a playoff team this season. Yet they’re 8-2, one of only five teams with two or fewer losses this season, and have to be considered a threat to win the second Super Bowl in Tomlin’s tenure.
There is already some revisionist history on the switch to Wilson. Some will say they believed Wilson could revive his career at age 35. Those are mostly lies. Very, very few thought Wilson could still play at a high level. Tomlin made a move that was questioned, mocked or both.
The Steelers haven’t lost since.
Capping a great career
Tomlin never posting a losing season has been repeated so often that it has become a punch line, but there’s a reason that fact got beaten into the ground. To go 18 seasons and never be below .500 is amazing, especially in a league that is designed to ensure parity.
Tomlin already has a Hall of Fame resume. Bill Cowher, the Steelers’ coach before Tomlin, is in the Hall of Fame and Tomlin measures up well with him:
Tomlin: 181-102-2 (.639 win percentage), 1 Super Bowl, 2 AFC titles
Cowher: 149-190-1 (.623 win percentage), 1 Super Bowl, 2 AFC titles
Tomlin has a higher win percentage than Hall of Fame coaches like Curly Lambeau, Cowher, Bud Grant, Joe Gibbs, Bill Walsh and Tom Landry. Tomlin has just one Super Bowl and an 8-10 record in the playoffs — the many Steelers fans who have been laughably impatient with Tomlin through the years will point out those facts often — and that is what separates some of the other coaches who are already enshrined in Canton. But Tomlin’s resume is already better than some of the coaches in the Hall, and he’s not close to being done at age 52.
An NFL Coach of the Year award would help Tomlin’s case. The fact that Tomlin hasn’t won is a bigger statement on the flawed nature of the award than Tomlin himself. In Tomlin’s 18 seasons, voters have determined that coaches like Mike Smith, Ron Rivera (twice), Jason Garrett, Matt Nagy and Brian Daboll deserved to win before Tomlin got one.
Other coaches have a great case for the award this season. It’s a deep race. But it would be strange for a coach with a Hall of Fame-level resume, a Super Bowl ring and almost two decades of never posting a losing season never wins the award. It’s strange to say about a coach with a championship, another Super Bowl appearance, seven division titles and 11 playoff berths, but this season might be Tomlin’s best job. The group of people who picked the Steelers to win the AFC North and don’t own at least three Terrible Towels might be infinitesimally small. But Tomlin keeps winning. Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised the Steelers are in first place in late November.
A few times through the years, as the Steelers fell short in the playoffs, the franchise has had to go against some public sentiment to keep extending Tomlin and its decades-long streak of never firing a coach. But the Steelers knew what they had with Tomlin. Other franchises can learn a lesson from that.