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Steelers, Cards Master Their Opportunities

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By ROY CUMMINGS

rcummings@tampatrib.com

Published: January 29, 2009

TAMPA - Even now, two years after the fact and with an AFC title in his pocket, it seems like a reach. He was just so green, the hiring coming some two months before his 35th birthday and in the wake of his only season as a defensive coordinator.

The Lions or Raiders could have hired a coach with that kind of background and no one would have blinked. But the Steelers? They were only a year removed from their fifth Super Bowl title and there was no reason to believe a sixth wasn't on the horizon.

Not only that, but in addition to taking over one of the league's most storied franchises, he was replacing a legend who left behind a legion of loyalists, a few of whom thought former assistants Ken Whisenhunt and Russ Grimm were more deserving of the job.

And who knows? Maybe they were. Two years later, though, as Pittsburgh prepares to face Whisenhunt's Cardinals in Super Bowl XLIII, it's hard to argue with the Steelers' seemingly risky decision to replace Bill Cowher with former Bucs secondary coach Mike Tomlin.

Though he initially walked into a divided locker room, one filled with players who questioned his credentials and approach, Tomlin quickly pulled all the factions together and kept the Steelers on the path they were riding before Cowher left.

It was no small achievement. The transition wasn't all that smooth, either. In fact, some players will tell you that Tomlin stepped on a lot of toes along the way.

"Everything was his way," linebacker James Harrison said. "There was no negotiating anything."

There couldn't be. That's how Tomlin saw it, anyway. If he was ever going to make the Steelers his team and erase the longing some had for Cowher, he first had to get them to play by his rules.

And he had plenty of rules. A lot of them were different than the ones Cowher had. Thus the rub.

It turns out, though, that Tomlin likes rub.

It's a necessary part of change, he says. The key is to get those making the changes to believe there is a profit to be gained from making them. As it turns out, that was the easy part.

Tomlin is nothing if not personable, and at 34 he still spoke a language the players understood. Even better, he listened to their music and knew what drove them.

"He's a lot like us," quarterback Ben Roethlisberger said. "The way he jokes around, the things he's into, he's just easy to relate to. I mean, he's kind of a kid and we all like that."

Players like consistency, too, and Tomlin's message was always the same. Good practice, bad practice, it didn't matter. He never wavered in his approach and that caught the players' attention, too.

"A coach can tell you a thousand things, but if the actions and the results don't come up the same, you realize he's not real," veteran linebacker Larry Foote said. "But he was always faithful to his word. It's hard not to respect that."

Respect is one thing; winning is another. Respect can fade if victories don't materialize, but Tomlin kept the tradition of winning alive, leading the Steelers to wins in each of their first three games in 2007 and in four of their first five.

By then, everyone had bought into his program. By then, the respect he was seeking when he first walked into that locker room had become rock solid. Good thing, too, because Tomlin still had some mistakes in him.

Harrison talks forever about his coach's decision to practice the players in pads until well into December last season. As their first-round exit from the 2007 playoffs indicates, it was a little over the top, Harrison said.

"He had us banging, full pads, all the way up to Week 15 or 16," Harrison said. "But this year he got us out of pads early and that really helped save the body. And look at the results. I mean, he's done a much better job of listening to his vets this year. I think last year he was just feeling guys out and doing his own thing and going with his gut. But this year, it's like he's grown as a coach."

Others have seen the growth. More importantly, in places such as Denver, where the Broncos hired 32-year-old Josh McDaniels as their new head coach, and Tampa Bay, where the Bucs hired 32-year-old Raheem Morris as their new head coach, they've been inspired by it.

"I'm not going to be so presumptuous as to assume that me doing what I've done has affected those guys and given them opportunities," Tomlin said. "I think all of those guys are where they are because of what they've done in this business."

Perhaps they are. But it's hard to imagine any of them would be where they are today were it not for the success Tomlin has had since the Steelers took a chance on him.

"He's done a great job ever since he set foot in the door here," Steelers tight end Heath Miller said. "The product he's put on the field week in and week out, it's a direct reflection of him, and he deserves credit for that."

Reporter Roy Cummings can be reached at (813) 259-7979.

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