The Trouble With Tomlin
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As I said in the Penguins post earlier this weekend, the Eddy Spaghetti squad has a hard time rationalizing slamming coaches that seem to be doing their job. Michel Terrien knows his team, he can handle them as he wants to. Every Pirates coach since Barry Bond left? Not so much.
So this isn't an attack on Mike Tomlin, whose team just dropped a second game on the road against a far inferior opponent, these are just a couple observations.
• Even if the team was prepared, they were cocky. In both loses this year the Steelers went up by 7 early and then committed mistakes until they found themselves in a hole. To their credit, they came back in the second half and played like they should've. Still, the AFC is too tough this year to not slam the door on bad teams early.
The attitude of a team is a coach's main concern. I've been a fan of Tomlin's demeanor thus far, but this is an important flaw.
• The final PIT touchdown drive. I'm not saying that it wasn't effective. It was. But next year, if Tomlin is the coach I hope he is and he learns from his mistakes. He runs Parker/Davenport until there is 30 seconds left instead of running a touchdown route for Miller, who we all know is money inside the 20. A few running plays would have been worth it just to spook a timeout from Shanahan.
• Blowing the "call a time out as the kicker kicks the final field goal so he has to kick it again" play. This really isn't a mistake as it is just kind of embarrassing. I mean every coach has done this since Shanahan did it in Week One. If I were a Pop Warner coach I'd be calling this during every final field goal. Then I'd scream "Kick it again, Tubby!" Then I'd point at the blobby kicker's mom and make obscene hand gestures as to insinuate we've previously copulated likely will soon after his ham slab of a foot connects with the ball.
Also, Coach Tomlin got a little trigger happy. It happens (but not always on national television).
Final Weekend Scorecard:
2 Penguins Wins: Tremendous
1 Steelers Loss: Crushing
The Eddy Spaghetti Team's Illogical And Unreasonable Connection Between Mood And The Outcome Of Professional Sports Contests: Confirmed
P.S. We normally root for the NL team in the Series, but this time we've really jumped on the Colorado Rockies bandwagon. Anyone rooting for the Red Sox are categorically vapid maroons and deserve nothing but the intense, repeated heart break of attending the funeral of an infant, but with baseball. Oh, and Josh Fogg pitches for Colorado. Remember him?
4 comments:
What if Tomlin calls the time out and he misses the field goal, gets an extra chance and nails it? It's a 49 yard attempt in cold weather and Elam was only 2 for 4 from 40-49 yards this year and missed a 50 yard attempt in Week 1. I don't think you can fault him too much for not calling the timeout just before the snap.
I agree with the attitude problems though.
The team seemed to not care about the game last night. Tomlin has got to get that corrected, but how much can he do? When the players get on the field, Tomlin can't control whether or not they think they have to play hard. It's mainly up to the players to correct that.
Sam, I don't fault Mr. T for pulling the time-out trick, I fault him for botching it. He's supposed to wait to call the time out until after the center snaps it and Elam kicks the ball and therefore has to do it again. Errbody's doin' in.
24 hours out, I am a little softer on Mike. I want to love him, these division games will define his season.
I hope The News is glum today.
I actually liked how Tomlin called the timeout. Everyone was waiting for him to call it right before the ball was snapped so Elam would have to re-kick it, and Tomlin caught everyone off guard. Therefore, Elam was disrupted as he was mentally calming himself to kick it rather than letting him go through the motion and practicing the kick, per se.
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