Tomlin takes debate out of Steelers' outside-box choice
Prisco on Whisenhunt
TAMPA, Fla. -- Pittsburgh's Mike Tomlin is in a Super Bowl after only two years on the job, and he's here as the youngest head coach in Super Bowl history -- but could we change the subject, please?
"This is not my story," Tomlin says, in a familiar refrain.
Except this IS his story. Tomlin was a defensive coordinator for one year when he was hired to replace Bill Cowher. At the time, the move was controversial not because of whom the Steelers hired but because of whom they did not.
That would be Ken Whisenhunt or Russ Grimm, and now that both share the same Super Bowl with Tomlin, yeah, I'd say this is a story about all of them.
Essentially, it's a story about how the Steelers took the unconventional route to a head coach -- again -- when they had two qualified candidates in their own building. One was Whisenhunt, then the team's offensive coordinator; the other was Grimm, the Steelers' assistant head coach and offensive line assistant.
Only Whisenhunt had taken the head-coaching job in Arizona, leaving Grimm as the odds-on favorite to replace Cowher. But Grimm didn't get the job, Tomlin did and now you see why this is his story.
Tomlin was the long-shot to take over the Steelers, partly because Grimm -- who attended high school in suburban Pittsburgh and attended the University of Pittsburgh -- seemed perfectly positioned to succeed Cowher, and partly because Tomlin was young and off most people's radar.
"Did I think he'd be a head coach?" asked Minnesota safety Darren Sharper, who played with Tomlin in college and played for him with the Vikings. "I knew someday he would be, but I thought it would have been a couple of years down the road. Frankly, I was surprised it happened when it did."
He wasn't alone. Some persons will tell you that Grimm was promised the job before the club withdrew its proposal and offered it to Tomlin. But when that rumor started to gain momentum two years ago, I contacted Art Rooney II, the team's president, and he shot it down -- saying Grimm was "a very serious candidate" but never offered the job.
Maybe. Maybe not.
All I know is that there are a dozen explanations about what happened, and what happened is that with one move the Steelers seem to have solved two problems: They found their next head coach and sent Arizona one of the NFL's most valued assistants.
"I'm glad we both made it this far," Grimm said at Tuesday's Media Day.
Me, too. Because Grimm wasn't just disappointed when he lost out on the Pittsburgh job; he was devastated, according to those who know him.
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| Mike Tomlin has never had a problem fitting in with his players. (AP) |
"Any time you make a run at something and you don't get it you're disappointed," Grimm said. "That's the nature of the business. I respect that, and it's time to move on. You go somewhere and it's time to move on.
"There are no hard feelings there. I love the Rooneys. They were great to me while I was there. It's a good family and a great organization from top to bottom, but it was time to move on."
But that's what makes this story so intriguing. It wasn't time for Tomlin to move on. He was young. He was a relative unknown. And he was a year into his job in Minnesota.
But he was so impressive when he interviewed with the Steelers they decided to take the leap -- just as they did with Cowher in 1992 -- and chairman Dan Rooney offered the abridged version as to why on Tuesday. "He does things right," he said.
He has so far. He's two-for-two in division titles. He's off to the best start of any coach in Steelers history. And he's the favorite to deliver Pittsburgh its sixth Super Bowl in seven tries.
"I don't know if Grimm was supposed to get the job or not," said Minnesota coach Brad Childress, who hired Tomlin as his defensive coordinator, "but I do know Mike must have impressed (the Steelers). And that doesn't surprise me because the guy is a great communicator.
"All you need to know about him is that he goes into Tampa Bay as a rookie coach and succeeds Herman Edwards (as a secondary coach). There is Ronde Barber sitting with arms crossed and John Lynch, and he gains credibility with those guys practically overnight. His communication skills are what stand out."
I believe him, because Sharper was there in Minnesota when Tomlin had to wade through a minefield at cornerback when he replaced struggling veteran Fred Smoot with rookie Cedric Griffin. What struck Sharper was how blunt and honest his defensive coordinator was in tackling a difficult decision.
"Mike is one of those guys," Sharper said, "who could sit in front of a fifth-grade class, and they would know what he was talking about. Or he could stand in front of a law firm and its board of directors, and they would understand what he's saying.
"He just knows how to talk to people and how to be persuasive. A lot of times players want to know what they're doing and why they're doing it, and he can tell them. But he's not a pushover."
So the NFL discovered. Tomlin inherited the league's toughest schedule this season and produced a 12-4 finish, knocking off New England, Dallas and Baltimore in successive weeks down the stretch. Then he hammered San Diego and Baltimore in the playoffs to make it eight victories in nine games and make the Rooneys look like geniuses.
"I don't think he had to earn his stripes," safety Troy Polamalu said, "because he was successful from the very onset of his head coaching career. As a team, we believe that whatever the Rooneys choose will be best for our team.
"It's been a tremendous blessing for us to have him as a head coach. It's really unique in the sense that he's younger and more hip, more GQ, than you would see any other coach, and [what I mean is that] he's more compassionate and more sympathetic to what we experience as players -- one being the youth, and, two, being a similar cultural background as a lot of the players."
Or as quarterback Ben Roethlisberger put it, "nothing against Coach Cowher, but Coach Tomlin just seems like he's one of us and is out here having fun like we are."
Appearances aren't deceiving. He is having fun. So is Russ Grimm. Winning cures everything.
