Mike Tomlin and a Sixth Super Bowl Title
The question came as the Steelers prepared for Super Bowl XLIII in Pittsburgh, after media from all over the country had descended on their practice facility. Mike Tomlin was asked by a national NFL reporter about some of the Steelers players saying he had improved in his second season as a head coach.
Tomlin, unwilling to play along for a presumably feel-good story about his precociousness as a coach, retorted that it wasn’t their job to judge him; it was his job to evaluate them.
Both the answer and the question were telling when it came to the man who succeeded Cowher. Tomlin’s reaction revealed why he had been able to establish control of a veteran locker room from the outset. The question underscored how fraught with pitfalls the job was when Tomlin accepted it in January of 2007.
The Steelers were a year removed from winning the Super Bowl when Cowher stepped down after an 8–8 season. The core of the 2005 championship team had remained intact and the prevailing thought was that the Steelers would promote from within the organization.
They had two worthy in-house candidates in offensive coordinator Ken Whisenhunt and assistant head coach/offensive line coach Russ Grimm. Each made the list of four finalists along with Bears defensive coordinator Ron Rivera and Tomlin, who had been a defensive coordinator for a season with the Vikings, one in which they went 6–10.
Tomlin, after much speculation and some confusion, was hired over Grimm. At the age of 34 and with only eight seasons of NFL experience on his résumé, he became just the third Steelers head coach since 1969.
“Some guys wanted the Rooneys to promote from within. Some guys wanted Whisenhunt. Some guys wanted Russ Grimm,” former Steelers quarterback Charlie Batch said. “But it got to that point where when the Rooneys decided, everybody said, ‘There’s a reason why they’ve only had two coaches [since 1969]. If they selected him, we go with it.’”
It did not take long for a veteran-laden team to understand why the Rooneys had turned over one of the NFL’s flagship franchises to someone young enough that he had played against Steelers linebacker and locker room leader James Farrior in college.
“The No. 1 thing he needed to do was command the attention,” Batch said, “and he was able to get that in his very first meeting even though he was only two or three years older than some of the guys in that locker room. He was able to relate to guys and get the best out of them.”
“You could tell he loved the game of football,” said former Steelers defensive end Brett Keisel, who played five seasons for Cowher before Tomlin became head coach. “He knew about it, he loved studying it, he loved watching it. He’s a great motivator and a great speaker. We knew we were in a situation where a lot of us had been together a long time and we had a great rapport together and just a great, great vibe in the locker room.”
The Steelers won 10 regular-season games in Tomlin’s first season as well as the AFC North. They ran out of gas—Tomlin ran such a physically demanding training camp that the Steelers may have lost their legs—and fell to the Jaguars in the divisional round of the 2007 playoffs.
The unwavering confidence Tomlin had in himself, however, helped set up a championship season in 2008.
First some background: Tomlin had broken into the NFL as a defensive backs coach with Tony Dungy, a Chuck Noll disciple, and Tampa Bay. He spent five seasons with the Buccaneers before becoming the Vikings’ defensive coordinator in 2006. He spent one season with the Vikings before arriving in Pittsburgh, full of energy and charisma.
Tomlin had run a 4-3 defense in Minnesota and that, coupled with Dungy’s influence, fueled nervous speculation after the Steelers hired him. The Steelers had long employed a 3-4 defense and fans fretted that he would make major changes to a team built for a 3-4—and built to win now.
A first-time head coach less secure with himself might well have insisted on making an imprint on the side of the ball that was his expertise. What did Tomlin do? He left the defense, at least schematically, alone and didn’t meddle with what coordinator Dick LeBeau had been doing. He also retained many of Cowher’s defensive assistants.
That continuity paid huge dividends in 2008.
A Steelers defense that was experienced but with most of its key players in their prime emerged as the top one in the NFL—as well as one for the ages (see the breakdown on the next page).
It carried an offense that dealt with line and injury issues all season as the Steelers won 12 games and defended their AFC North title.
The one time the defense faltered in 2008, Roethlisberger and the offense picked it up.
After the Steelers allowed a pair of fourth-quarter touchdowns in Super Bowl XLIII to fall behind the upstart Cardinals, Roethlisberger led an eight-play, 78-yard drive. He and Santonio Holmes played pitch and catch all the way down the field in the last two minutes of the game and connected on a six-yard touchdown to deliver a 27–23 win.
The victory made Tomlin, at age 36, the youngest coach to win a Super Bowl. The Steelers returned to the Super Bowl two seasons later but couldn’t summon any late-game magic in a 31–25 loss to the Packers.
The Steelers missed the playoffs in 2012 and 2013 but seem poised to make a run at the Super Bowl in the coming seasons after rebuilding their defense on the run. Tomlin has his critics because of his game management but after nine seasons as head coach his six playoff appearances tied Noll and Cowher for that many in the same span.
And his .639 winning percentage topped both Cowher (.597) and Noll (.591) after their first nine seasons. Tomlin has never had a losing season. Nor has he lost a team. That his voice still resonates in the Steelers’ locker room—and the patience ownership has shown with head coaches dating back to Noll—bodes well for Tomlin staying with the Steelers for quite some time.
A Closer Look at Santonio Holmes’ Steelers Legacy
Santonio Holmes made one of the greatest catches in Super Bowl history and his toe-tapping grab in a 27–23 win over the Cardinals in the 2008 Super Bowl delivered a sixth Lombardi Trophy to the Steelers.
Ironically enough, Holmes’ missteps while with the Steelers led to his second-greatest contribution to the organization. The Steelers dealt the former Super Bowl MVP to the Jets in 2010 after Holmes became too much of a headache. The trade netted a fifth-round draft pick—the Steelers had drafted Holmes in the first round of the 2006 draft—and looked like a paltry return for an elite talent at wide receiver.
Now it is merely one of the best trades in franchise history.
The Steelers traded the pick they received from the Jets to the Arizona Cardinals during the 2010 NFL draft for cornerback Bryant McFadden and a sixth-round pick. They took Antonio Brown with that selection, No. 198 overall, and he is on his way to becoming the best wide receiver in franchise history. Brown has already won three Steelers MVP Awards, something accomplished by only three other players. And he is re-writing the Steelers’ record book during a stretch that is among the best ever by an NFL wide receiver. Over 2014–15, Brown became the only player in NFL history with consecutive seasons of at least 120 catches and at least 1,600 receiving yards.
The 2008 Defense Stirred Echoes of the Steel Curtain
Shortly after the Steelers parted ways with longtime defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau in 2015, the city of Pittsburgh designated February as Dick LeBeau Month for that year. City Council also presented him with a key to the city in a ceremony attended by Steelers outside linebacker James Harrison and former Steelers defensive end Brett Keisel.
A humbled LeBeau talked extensively about the defense that might be nearest to his heart of all that he has coached and for good reason. The 2008 unit led the NFL in scoring (13.9 points allowed per game) and total defense (237.2 yards allowed per game) and keyed the Steelers’ run to a sixth world championship.
“LeBeau talks about that year all the time and says that was an amazing year and that he doesn’t think that will ever get beaten because of today’s NFL,” Keisel said.
The 2008 defense compares favorably with any in Steelers history, including the vaunted Steel Curtain units. It also stacks up with great ones in recent NFL history from a statistical standpoint. Here is a look at the 2008 defense in seven categories compared with six other great defenses, including three from the Steelers:
Yards per play
1974 Steelers, 3.6
1976 Steelers, 3.8
2008 Steelers, 3.9
1975 Steelers, 4.2
2000 Ravens, 4.3
1985 Bears, 4.4
2015 Broncos, 4.4
Yards per carry
2000 Ravens, 2.7
1976 Steelers, 3.2
2008 Steelers, 3.3
2015 Broncos, 3.3
1974 Steelers, 3.4
1985 Bears, 3.7
1975 Steelers, 4.2
Rushing yards per game
2000 Ravens, 60.6
2008 Steelers, 80.3
1985 Bears, 82.4
1976 Steelers, 104.1
1974 Steelers, 114.9
1975 Steelers, 130.4
Net passing yards per attempt
1974 Steelers, 4.3
1975 Steelers, 4.6
2008 Steelers, 4.7
1976 Steelers, 5.0
1985 Bears, 5.4
2015 Broncos, 5.6
2000 Ravens, 5.7
Net passing yards per game
1974 Steelers, 104.7
1975 Steelers, 131.1
1976 Steelers, 133.2
2008 Steelers, 156.9
2000 Ravens, 176.0
1985 Bears, 187.3
2015 Broncos, 199.6
Total yards per game
1974 Steelers, 219.6
2008 Steelers, 237.2
1976 Steelers, 237.3
1985 Bears, 247.9
2000 Ravens, 258.4
1975 Steelers, 261.5
2015 Broncos, 283.2
TDs allowed
*1976 Steelers, 14
1985 Bears, 16
*1975 Steelers, 17
2008 Steelers, 19
*1974 Steelers, 21
2000 Ravens, 22
2015 Broncos, 29
*14-game season