Thanks, Terry Bradshaw. It’s your fault.
TB made the Pittsburgh Steelers a favored team around here 50 years ago. He also spearheaded their dominance – four Super Bowl championships in six seasons from 1974-79.
The Standard.
Mike Tomlin has been only the third Pittsburgh head coach since Bradshaw’s arrival from Woodlawn High School and Louisiana Tech as “the Blond Bomber,” the No. 1 selection in the 1970 NFL Draft.
Tomlin has cited “The Standard” throughout his 19 seasons in charge. He’s not measured up to it.
Or has he?
A 201-125-2 (.628) record. Never a losing season – 13 trips to the playoffs. A Super Bowl crown in his second year, capping 2008, when the Steelers entered postseason as a sixth seed and won four road games, finished by the big game in Tampa.
What’s not to like?
No playoff wins since 2016. This was the fifth time in six years Pittsburgh reached postseason and fell flat.
A fellow Steelers’ backer texted one word in the waning minutes of Monday night’s 30-6 playoff loss to a very, very good Houston team.
“Purgatory.” Dustin was offering a takeoff of the Catholic church’s progression of a soul, a time of purification that precedes entry into heaven for some souls.
Being stuck in purgatory, the reference shared Monday night, is “being trapped in a difficult, unpleasant or uncertain situation, often a frustrating waiting game where you can’t move forward but aren’t in eternal damnation.” (Thanks, AI. I’m agonizing too much to try to express it myself.)
A week ago, they won the AFC North title, but only because Baltimore’s rookie kicker was wide right on a last-play 44-yard field goal that saved the Steelers and ultimately ended the 18-year run of John Harbaugh as the Ravens’ coach. He is 193-124 (.609) and will soon be the new coach of the Falcons/Giants/Titans/Dolphins/Browns/Raiders (Atlanta and New York are the current favorites in speculation).
One of my other pals suggested sacking Tomlin and hiring Harbaugh, which would be like changing socks by moving them from one foot to the opposite one.
As for the 53-year-old in the middle of this mess (if you call a 10-win season and a playoff berth a mess; asking my pals who are Cowboys or Saints fans, not even inquring of those who are Dolphins and Raiders loyalists and haven’t seen their teams win a playoff game for more than 20 years), Tomlin had this to say at the postgame presser:
“Words are cheap. It’s about what you do or you don’t do. People talk too much in our business. You either do or you don’t. I’m not going to make excuses.”
But will the Steelers make a move? Or will Tomlin decide to call it, as his predecessors Chuck Noll and Bill Cowher did when their grips weren’t as tight as they had been?
One resident expert played his last game Monday night. Aaron Rodgers, 42, wasn’t ready to entertain the idea that he had pulled off an NFL uniform for the last time, but he went into this year with that plan in mind, and I think he’ll take his new wife and create a new mostly off-the-grid life.
He admires Tomlin, and his previous coach in Green Bay, Matt LaFleur, whose team also bowed out in a fourth-quarter collapse. Here’s what Mr. Rodgers says:
“This league has changed a lot in 21 years. When you hear conversations about the ‘Mike Tomlins’ of the world, the ‘Matt LaFleurs’ of the world, those are just two that I played for. And when I first got in the league, there wouldn’t be conversations about whether those guys were on the ‘hot seat.'” But the way that the league is covered now, and the way that there’s snap decisions, and a validity given to the ‘Twitter experts’ and all the experts on TV now … to me that’s an absolute joke.
“Mike T. has had more success than damn near everybody in the league for the last 19, 20 years. More than that, when you have the right guy, and the culture is right, you don’t think about making a change. But there’s a lot of pressure that comes from the outside, and obviously that sways decisions from time-to-time. But it’s not how I would do things, and not how they used to be.”
Pittsburgh has briefly been Mr. Rodgers’ neighborhood. Today is definitely not a beautiful day. But the last week was positively joyful in the Steel City. Until the fourth quarter Monday night, hope was alive.
I’ll take the word of the authentic Pittsburgh Mr. Rogers – Fred Rogers of PBS kid show fame. A wise soul if ever there has been one.
“Who we are in the present includes who we were in the past.”
I like Mike. Imperfections, frustrations and all.
Contact Doug at sbjdoug@gmail.com