The end of the NFL regular season has arrived for the majority of teams, two of which are the Pittsburgh Steelers and the L.A. Rams.
While the former just missed the playoffs with a 9-8 record, the latter’s playoff hopes ended weeks ago and they tumbled to a 5-12 finish.
For the Rams, the chatter centered immediately around the future of head coach Sean McVay.
McVay has been the Rams’ coach since 2017. In six seasons he has led the team to a record of 60-38, two Super Bowl appearances and one Super Bowl win.
The 36-year-old coach boasts an impressive record and resume, and there’s no doubt that McVay is one of the great young coaches in the game today.
Yet after suffering his first losing season, the speculation surrounding McVay is that he might take a break from coaching.
He addressed his current status in a press conference yesterday.
“I think what I liked to do is be able to take the appropriate time,” McVay said Monday. “Never gone through anything like this, but you want to make sure that you’re considerate of the people that are affected.
“But that doesn’t mean it takes away the empathy, the level of responsibility that I do feel for the people that would be affected as it relates to my decision moving forward, and so those are the things that you don’t take lightly. You want to be able to make sure that you’re intentional about taking the appropriate time, while also making a decision in a manner that’s considerate of those people that would be affected.”
McVay is weighing his options, which include the broadcast booth, taking a temporary leave like Sean Payton, or returning to the team. The latter might be the most difficult as the Rams went all in to win the Super Bowl last season so they have minimal salary cap space for the next two years and they gave up first-round draft picks to acquire Matt Stafford.
He’s even allowing his assistant coaches to interview for other jobs unimpeded.
The Rams coach is young and full of energy, but coaching in the NFL entails great sacrifice coupled with both mental and physical fatigue. Longevity doesn’t come easy, especially when winning expectations are a constant.
That’s why Mike Tomlin’s NFL coaching career is so impressive and deserves more respect.
Pittsburgh’s head coach owns the NFL record for most consecutive non-losing seasons (16) by a head coach.
While he doesn’t value that statistic as much as his players and supporters, it’s a record every head coach would be ecstatic to own. It’s something his team takes to heart and fought valiantly in the second half of this season to protect.
Yet many downplay and devalue his accomplishment, which is short-sighted and disrespectful.
Consistency can be regarded as success and excellence. In Tomlin’s case, it needs to be.
Tomlin is only the third head coach in Steelers history and is the franchise’s second-greatest head coach behind the legendary Chuck Noll. Many Tomlin detractors continue to point to his inheritance of Bill Cowher’s team as the reason why he won his first Super Bowl, but the fact remains that he has continued to win every season, never dipping below .500. That’s something neither Cowher nor Noll can claim.
When Tomlin’s doubters emerge, which they inevitably do each season, he always responds with success, which further irritates them. That’s when they point to his lack of playoff wins and condescendingly discuss his historic coaching career.
They’ll glance over his incredible coaching performance in 2019 when many of his key players, including Ben Roethlisberger, got hurt and they still finished 8-8 with Mason Rudolph and Duck Hodges under center.
A year later the Steelers exceeded expectations as Tomlin led them to a 12-4 record and an AFC crown.
This past season he finished 9-8 after starting 2-6. And he did it with a rookie QB, an injury to TJ watt, a changing defense, a highly criticized offensive line and a young offense.
Tomlin’s 163-93-2 regular-season record is better than Payton’s and Pete Carroll, yet he’s somehow mentioned after those coaches. Mind you, they all have one Super Bowl victory.
And in the three seasons that he finished at 8-8, he bounced back in two of the following seasons to improve Pittsburgh’s win total.
This isn’t a knock on Sean McVay. Rather, it’s to provide perspective on how hard it is to be an NFL head coach and what it takes to win and continue winning.
So if you still downplay the importance of Mike Tomlin’s history-making coaching career, or exclude him from the ranks of the elite coaches in the league, watch what Sean McVay does next and then remember what you read here.
