Tomlin is in a true "just the coach" role. He does not pick the players, and may not even have full staff control. He has two high level responsibilities:
- Win as many games as possible with the players he had
- Develop the players on his team.
So the two natural questions are :
- Who the hell else wins more games with the players Pitt has had?
- Who develops talent better than Tomlin? Guys leave there and fall off a cliff.
A lot of the "since 2016" narrative is because of the browns loss, which was DOA with a fumbled snap, and the Shazier injury. Also Tomlin has proven he is willing to pivot to offense-first when that unit is elite, similar to a Sean McDermott in Buffalo.
Last time I look this guy is winning with literal replacement level quarterbacks, and we have repeatedly see players leave Pitt and fall off of a cliff. Mike isn't the problem there. However, sometimes the only way to get better is to bottom out, and maybe Pitt should do that. How the hell else do they get a quarterback?
I wish Tomlin could just go to Chicago, so Caleb has a sweet coach and Tomlin has his quarterback. Instead we're gonna have to sit through 2 more years of this tired ass conversation.
week 0 - "This is the year the streak ends!"
week 17 - Tomlin wins 10 games
end of season - "Tomlin sucks!"