I know you said that with tongue in cheek but it's what I always hear from the viles about Peyton Manning that's all they have at this time
Game Thread: NFL Wildcard Weekend Thread (All Posts Here for 1/15 and 1/16 Games)
- Thread starter selmaborntidefan
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I concur with you if you're suggesting Tomlin is underrated - that's true. I think Tomlin has a unique circumstance that plays into what you're talking about, however.
Tomlin took over an 8-8 team that had just won the Super Bowl two years' previous. And while I'm sure your point will be about how many players other than Big Ben were no longer there by 2007, it's just the nature of the beast that when you take over a recent Super Bowl winner and win immediately, you get no credit for it at all. George Seifert won Super Bowl 24 when Walsh left and it was, "Who cares, anybody could win with that team." But Seifert - UNLIKE Tomlin - had been with the 49ers for nine years and DC for six when he took over, so he had a lot to do with their success.
He never got one ounce of credit, but the moment the 49ers fumbled away a three-peat, he got the blame.
Tomlin wins 10 his first year and then wins the Super Bowl his second - but unfortunately, it's against the Arizona Cardinals, a franchise that makes the Atlanta Falcons front office look like the New England Patriots. And they barely win. So he has his Super Bowl and now he has a problem: any season he doesn't win the Super Bowl is now a failure. He has the Bobby Cox problem.
There are only two ways for Tomlin to win a COY award (in my opinion) now:
1) go 17-0
2) have one season where you go 3-13 and do an overhaul and wind up #1 seed the next year
I realize you'll probably tell me that Cox won four MOY awards. Yes, he did. But go look at those years and it supports the idea that they vote for "coach who we think overachieved." Cox won it with the worst-to-first Braves of 91 and the "the dynasty is over with Maddux and Glavine gone" pennants in 2004 and 2005. And he got it in 1985 with Toronto not so much on what he did that year but what he'd done for his entire four years there.
I guess the other way Tomlin could win it is to do like Cox did late in his career - Big Ben is gone and he rides some Matt Cassel-Scott Mitchell-Steve Bono transitional QB to the next era to a 13-win season.
You're correct that Tomlin is massively underrated.
I'll even agree you're correct that Tomlin was better than the guys who beat him.
But if you go look at the winners during Tomlin's time, it's hard to argue he ever deserved it, too. It's like when Dave Stewart had four straight 20-win seasons with Oakland in 1987-90 but never won a Cy Young. And didn't deserve one, either.
My point is that if Reid is going to get it for winning a SB with the most loaded offense in NFL history and Belichick is getting serious consideration for winning 10 games with a 1st round quarterback then the 2018 snub of Tomlin should be considered the worst snubbing in history. I’m not the biggest Tomlin fan. I like him but he isn’t Pittsburgh in the way Cowher was. He is arguably the 2nd or 3rd best coach in the last 15 years.
But consider this. 2018 was the season after we lost the best running back (Henry hadn’t taken off yet) and best (or 2nd best) wide receiver in the off-season because they had issues with Ben and the front office. To win 8 games with a 2nd and practice squad quarterback under those circumstances is nothing short of amazing. Yes they weren’t a playoff team but they were in the hunt and could have clinched a spot in the last 4 weeks. That may have been one of the single best coaching jobs in NFL history, and that is not hyperbole.
The issue is more around Andy Reid winning one of the awards over Tomlin than Nagy. I get the press loves new coaches but really how does that Andy Reid team trump any other? Because he won a super bowl? Okay then why wasn’t Arians the COY last year?
My point is there is no consistency or journalistic integrity with how NFL awards are awarded.
Dumb question (on my part) - is the COY awarded after the Super Bowl or after the regular season?
And Andy Reid DID draft Patrick Mahomes, so....
1 of the awards is (sporting news and Maxwell now defunct ) and one isn’t (AP).
Wait 2018 was Mahomes’s MVP season not the SB. and it’s 2019 the year without Ben. In 2019 both Harbaugh and Shannahan won COY.
But it’s the same principle. Why are you strictly basing it off playoff success or the NFL MVP. You see if we are going to go down this road then everyone who wins a SB with 3 years at the team should win the award because they drafted the core components of the team. I mean hell… why doesn’t Arians win it last year for that playoff run when you give it to Reid for basically the same thing two years.
My point is that if we are calling it COY then there has to be some form of coaching involved in determining a winner. It can’t be simply “I have Mahomes” or “I won a weak division with a loaded team”. Let’s seriously ask this question “what is a more impressive coaching job? Winning 8 games in the AFC North and NFC West schedules with your 2nd string and practice squad quarterbacks or winning 12 games in the AFC West with the NFL’s best offense and Mahomes”. I don’t think many unbiased people would seriously answer the latter. I think you or I could win 8-10 games with that Chiefs offense but we would struggle to win one with that Steelers offense that year.
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I am not sure that Tomlin is being snubbed by anyone. He has been the Steelers head coach for more than a decade, and he is loved by the players and fans. He is very widely respected as one of the best head coaches in the NFL.
The problem is that if we are going to have a legitimate award acknowledging the coach of the year then it can’t have a Mickey Mouse way of determining it. Otherwise it’s just a Mickey Mouse award.
Tomlin should have won it twice (2007, 2019). 2007 is understandable because it’s hard to argue against a 16-0 team. But to award Harbaugh and Shanahan over Tomlin in 2019 is just dumb and bogus.
I agree with the award part, but you make it sound like he is not getting the recognition that he deserves. He is praised throughout the sport.
How many times has Saban won coach of the year? He is still recognized by everyone who matters as the GOAT.
These awards can be a complete sham for reasons that we all understand. Winning them is not a huge accomplishment. The accomplishment is in producing a winning team year after year in the Not For Long football league.
Yeah, but - and I don't want to be dismissive here even though I am and have been at times - you have to kinda consider the source and how little attention the people who vote on these actually pay to what they're doing. Not only is there a herd mentality and lack of original thought, but the voters in these things - for example, like that idiot who announced he wasn't voting for Rodgers because of the vaccine - bear grudges they shouldn't, settle scores with players/coaches they don't like and don't really like the truth, which is the people WRITING about the sport know maybe 1/100th of what the folks PLAYING the sport know about it, but they think the only real difference in them and the athlete is genetics and perhaps some steroid injections.
The idiots who write about this stuff (which is 95% of the writers) tend to be people easily impressed with the wrong team. And like a lawyer (no offense intended to our law guys) they can argue some of the most ridiculous premises imaginable as if they're valid. They're easily impressed by eye-popping numbers without context (at least on certain teams) and as I've noted too many times to count, OFFENSE is always more valued than DEFENSE in football by the writers - largely because they can understand a phenomenal breakaway play or precision, but they can't grasp the nuances of "how did that defensive player know to be in that spot on that play."
And oh yeah, Tomlin is a DEFENSIVE specialist.
Mickey Mantle won 3 MVP awards. He SHOULD have won about eight but back when he was playing, it was almost like there was an unwritten agreement "nobody gets more than three MVPs." In fact, the only guy who has ever gotten more than three is Barroids. And for years they gave the Cy Old Award to "guy with the most wins" rather than "best pitcher in his league."
The writers hold grudges.
In 1947, Joe DiMaggio edged out Ted Williams for the MVP by a single point. Williams only won the Triple Crown that year, that's all, but the numbers FOR HIM were not all that great (.343/32 HRs/114 RBI) while DiMag was (.315/20/97). But then it came out that a BOSTON sportswriter named Mel Webb had left Williams completely off his ballot! That story has become legend among Bostonians - who never mention, of course, that THREE WRITERS left DiMaggio off their ballots. Except notice I said legend...because Mel Webb didn't even vote in the 1947 MVP. A later investigation in fact revealed some unsavory goings-on (including writers betting on the winner of the awards) in the late 40s.
Don't be too worried about awards that have less intrinsic value than who has the wrestling championships. They ARE largely corrupt and does anywhere he think the writers - some of the same ones with Hall votes - didn't KNOW Bonds was juicing and yet voted for him then?
But in all honesty, I just can't see a year Tomlin should have won it, either. Mason Rudolph to 8 wins doesn't change the fact Tomlin is a Super Bowl winning coach with 8 wins in a 16-game season and thus a .500 record.
Okay but there is a huge difference between NFL COY awards and the Paul Bear Bryant award. 32 vs 100+ is a start. But even then Saban has actually won it… twice (2003 and 2020). Side note… Dabo has the most of those awards so maybe it is a sham. But if you look at the winners they tend to be guys that truly deserve it. They don’t tend to be random names with random metrics.
Tomlin has never won a COY yet Harbaugh has 1 and Belichick has 2. So you can’t just say it’s non traditional power award. What it is, is an award to put on a bad coach’s resume to justify hiring him after someone fires him. Or it’s just a random award.
Personally aside from ROY all the NFL awards are pretty much shams.
Yet Harbaugh has 1 and Belichick have three. It’s an arbitrary award that a bunch of bozos from Boston and LA come up with is my point. It means nothing to get it.
The problem, though, is that for the last 50 years the Pittsburgh Steelers have been one of the "glory" teams, too, far more so and more often than the Cowboys.
Belichick won the COY in 2003 LARGELY because at that time everyone viewed his 2001 championship as a complete fluke. And they went from 9-7 ("yeah, 2001 was a fluke") to 14-2. The 2007 one is pretty obvious. But I'll admit the 2010 one is like, "Why in the world did he win that one?" Lovie Smith, Mike Smith, or Tomlin ALL would have been better choices than Belichick was in 2010.
Not to snark, but if it means nothing to get then why do you seem so upset about it???
(Just busting your chops a bit here bud).
I’m not upset about it. It’s how it’s being used by Patriots fans and Boston media.
It’s that we have people already acting like Belichick should be in serious consideration this year. I’ve been using Tomlin as an example of why this whole thing is a sham. But even by the ludicrous metrics and trends the COY awards go by Belichick winning it for this year would make the award even more useless. Trend wise Taylor should and is going to win it. Merit wise there are Atleast 4 coaches that SHOULD win it over Belichick. I mean how can you say coaching wise this year that Belichick did more to earn it over Taylor, Bisaccia, Vrabel, or Arians. The only reason that Belichick is getting 3rd place odds is a bunch of Boston blowhards are voting. Because you damn well know if the Patriots were in Atlanta or Jacksonville that no one would give much thought to a 3 game improvement and a playoff limper that had a 2 game lead at the end of the season.
My point is that it’s a useless metric to determine how successful a regular season is and how good of a coaching job someone did. The truth is that most analysts and experts were picking the Patriots as a playoff team even before the season. So why are we demanding recognition for meeting standards and expectations with a COY award? It’s because Boston media tries to hype everyone who successful there into a revolutionary war type hero. Again had this been in Atlanta no one would care.
Belichick did a good job this year. But if meeting preseason expectations is one of the greatest coaching jobs ever then it really shows that the Patriots aren’t really a great program or fanbase, and are more closely to the likes of the Miami Hurricanes. If I was to rank his best coaching seasons then this probably isn’t in the top 10 and if it was then it’s 9 or 10
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