Tomlin is probably my second favorite coach ever, and we know he's going to Canton when he retires. But I've given a ton of thought to my Top 25 GOAT NFL coaches list, and he's trending to rank well lower than I expected him to when I first started considering this a week ago...
There are several reasons, but the biggest and most damning reason is his lack of success, with HIS guys. Can never take the Super Bowl away from him, but he won it in Y2. That was Cowher's roster...
Can't take the 2010 runner-up from him, either, but 11 of his 22 starters on that Super Bowl roster were Cowher holdovers...
2013 was the first season more than 50% of his starters were players he picked! And there's a clear line of demarcation in his success from 2007-12 (Cowher's Guys), to 2013-23 (Tomlin's Team)...
For 6 years, from 2007 to 2012, Tomlin went 63-33 (.656), which is a Per16 rate of 10.5 wins/year. In those 6 years, he was a 3x AFC North champ, 4x playoff guy, with a 5-3 playoff record (.625), 2x Super Bowl appearances, and a Lombardi...
We now have 11 years of Tomlin's Team, in which his resume looks like this: 110-67-2 (.615), which is 9.8 wins/Per16. But the real crusher is postseason success, he's a 7x playoff guy, 4x division champ, 3-7 in the playoffs (.300), 0 Lombardis, zero Super Bowl runs, 0-1 AFCCG...
His resume since roster turnover seemingly defines treadmill coach, which, I think he's much more than that. But does he even get 11 years at the helm anywhere else if not in Pittsburgh with a roster that was 50%+ Cowher's the fricking first 6 years of his career?
So he's lower on this list than I would've initially assumed, and I'll have my formal GOAT25 list coming up soon. I've always been a Tomlin guy but I've long said that he benefitted really early from Cowher's players. This is the first time I've actually dug into it, though?
Would you guys call Tomlin a GOAT25 coach?
