Happy 2 Year Anniversary, Mike Tomlin

It seems like everyone is trying to find some sort of angle to over-expose to the media with the Super Bowl on the horizon. Pittsburgh trying to be the first franchise to win 6 rings, Ben vs. Whis, and Whis vs. Tomlin. We're all guilty of it, because there's only so much you can talk about when you have two weeks until the game.

The Whis vs. Tomlin debate is cool, only because both guys are young, up-and-coming coaches who took very different paths to their current positions, and both have their teams in the big game after only two seasons of work.

But today, I'm not trying to find a certain angle, or give a Tomlin > Whis post. Today, I just want to give props.

2 years ago on this very day, we learned that the Steelers bypassed offensive line coach Russ Grimm for no-name Mike Tomlin out of Minny. The move was questioned by more than a few people, seeing as how the young Tomlin was barely older than the guys he'd be coaching. And he had no head coaching experience.

Tomlin has quieted nearly everyone (including his team) on his way to successive AFC North division titles and a Super Bowl berth. If you saw any of this coming on this day back in 2007, please leave because you're lying.

I was a senior at St. Vincent College when I found out the news, and I was cautiously optimistic about the hire. I tried to get any positives out of it...mainly focusing on the parallels between the young, defensive-minded outside-of-the-organization Tomlin to the young, defensive-minded outside-of-the-organization Cowher back in 1992. While I hoped for the best, any worries I had were quickly thrown out the window when, just days after the hire, I briefly met Tomlin at St. Vincent, while he personally went over every minute detail of his first training camp location as a head coach. The man went everywhere, from the weight room to the locker rooms, to the caf...trying to find out every detail about this odd Benedictine campus that was about to host tons of athletes, staff and media.

To me, that was a perfect way to introduce himself to the Steelers faithful. Tomlin could've easily sent some no-name to scope the place for him, but there he was, hands-on and elbows-deep from the get-go. I knew right then that Tomlin had a special quality, one that would go over well with the hard-working Steelers fan...regardless of the new coach's experience, coaching philosophy, race, age or strategy.

Oh, and my best friend Bob and I kept calling him Mike Epps and Omar Tomlin...so I'll take credit for being one of the original Pittsburghers to make the Omar Epps comparison.

But in all honesty, with such a big game looming and way too many attempts to demonize players and teams, I figured the 2 year anniversary of Tomlin's hiring was a good enough reason to praise the man who has done so much in so little time.

John McCain Is Old Or A Liar

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate on the elderly that much. Sure, they're old, they don't understand new technology and they keep trying to give me that damn ribbon candy, but I gotta respect them for their contributions to this world. And even if those contributions are merely a bowl of Werther's Originals.

However, KDKA had a story, which I read on Deadspin, that said John McCain named members of the Steelers' defensive line when interrogated by the Viet-Cong as a P.O.W. Smart and cunning, throw out the first names you could think of, save your buddies' asses and confuse the shit out of the dirty foreigners trying to kill you and yours.

Be reminded that McCain was in Pittsburgh when he dropped that little information nugget. There's one problem. In his autobiography, McCain is quoted as saying he gave up another teams' names:


Pressed for more useful information, I gave the names of the Green Bay Packers' offensive line, and said they were members of my squadron.


That's from his 1999 book, Faith of My Fathers. Trying to win over the Steelers/Western PA vote, just like rival Barry Obama did a few weeks back?

ytownohio elaborates on Daily Kos about the KDKA story:


That's all well and good, but from 1967 to 1973 during McCain's imprisonment, the Steelers were just starting the process of assembling the great teams everyone remembers.

...

[The Packers claim] more sense since the Green Bay Packers of the '60s were nationally recognized. McCain's Steeler claim is at best false pandering and at worst a window into a easily confused 71-year-old man.


That makes a bit more sense. McCain has an event scheduled for Washington D.C. at the end of this month. If the story changes to him giving up Russ Grimm and the Hogs, we'll know something is fishy.