Tomlin Wins Debut

Calmer, with less chin and spittle, Mike Tomlin coaches his first Steeler win

Monday, August 06, 2007

By Chuck Finder, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Peter Diana, Post-Gazette

Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin shouts instructions at Hall of Fame game.
Click photo for larger image.

CANTON, Ohio -- The new guy donned his customary mental-warfare black outfit, paced the sidelines with a relatively quiet purpose and failed to spit on any of his players.

So went Mike Tomlin's Steelers head-coaching debut last night, having broken camp in Latrobe -- site of America's first professional football game -- for a first game in the birthplace of the National Football League.

Even if it was only a meaningless exhibition, in the Hall of Fame Game, a new head coach must start somewhere. Inside a high-school stadium next door to pro football's hall, Tomlin watched his starters outplay second-year coach Sean Payton's defending NFC South champions, the New Orleans Saints, when the game mattered at least a whit. Ben Roethlisberger connected twice for 73 yards with Cedrick Wilson, who days earlier publicly complained he wasn't an intended target often enough, and the heavy-pressure Steelers' defense made that 7-0 lead stand for more than a quarter in a 20-7 Steelers triumph.

By the second quarter, Tomlin settled mostly into a midfield lurker at Fawcett Stadium and remained nowhere near as animated, or moisture-imparting, as predecessor Bill Cowher, who resigned in January to become a full-time dad and part-time CBS analyst ... for a year or so anyway.

Easily three-fourths of the roughly 22,302 patrons inside Fawcett Stadium -- more of a Faucet during the two-hour pregame rain -- came garbed in black and gold to watch their favored Steelers. They were intrigued to see the new approach, the new coach.

"A good first step," Tomlin said afterward.

"He'll be good," said Jim Fragasse, a Jack Lambert jersey-wearing Steelers fan from Dover, Ohio, south of the Pro Football Hall and about equidistant from both Cleveland and Pittsburgh. "He's got a good team. We're pulling for him." Son Gabe, 10, on his shoulders and wife Laurie beside him nodded in agreement. But eldest son, Cody, 14, was reserving judgment on the new guy.

Brenda Simmons of Canton, the mother of a Browns son even though she has faithfully followed the Steelers for three decades, talked from underneath her soggy Steelers cap about the legacy of sideline consistency into which Tomlin treads.

She talked about him being the third Steelers head coach since 1969, not about him being the eighth fellow African-American to lead an NFL team onto a field, though she expressed pride in that latter fact. "I think we're going to do well with him," she said.

For pure viewing pleasure, Cowher long was a favorite among a Steelers Nation that foamed at the mouth almost as often as he did on a sideline. This, after all, was a 15-year coach who stuffed a photograph in an official's pocket, nearly tackled a Jacksonville returner, jutted his famed jaw, cried in front of the cameras and otherwise wore his rampant emotions openly.

Like Cowher before him a defensive coordinator named Steelers head coach at age 34, Tomlin is nevertheless a stark sideline contrast.

"You know, I really kind of took myself out of it," Tomlin said of the first-game equation. "I just wanted to create an environment for players and coaches to get what they needed out of it. When you do that, you kind of get your job done in the process."

Tomlin emerged onto the field at 6:57 p.m., harbinger or not, just as the slate skies opened with a sturdy rain once again. The new guy wore a Steelers waterproof jacket and windpants, still in the black he regularly wears on the steamy St. Vincent College fields at training camp (prompting his remark this week relating that to "mental warfare" with his players).

As fate would have it, the Fawcett Stadium videoboards were playing the 2006 Steelers' highlights film. Two minutes after he took the field, Tomlin was sharing a laugh with receivers coach Randy Fichtner and offensive coordinator Bruce Arians because the visage on the big screen was the new guy. There he was as the Minnesota Vikings coordinator. There he was as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers secondary coach.

Coincidence wasn't done with him just yet, either.

For then a fellow former Bucs assistant tapped him on the shoulder, ex-Browns center Jim Pyne.

"We knew he would be a head coach," offered Pyne, out of coaching and living in the Cleveland area. "Good guy. Hard worker. Smart. Intelligent. Great with people. Great teacher."

By game's start, Tomlin had changed into a Steelers sweatshirt -- black, of course -- and took his sideline spot at midfield, strolling back and forth between offense, defense, special teams.

Give the new guy credit: When it came time for the national anthem, he positioned himself, black Steelers ballcap over heart, among the on-field officials.

By the end of the first quarter, after a play in which Wilson appeared to be a victim of interference, he was working those same officials gently. "Nothing new. I did that as an assistant," Tomlin said. But, heretofore, "I had a coach who would tell me to shut up."

As for sideline demeanor, he opened the game walking up and down the bench shaking hands, giving embraces and patting both behinds and helmets. He poked his head into the kickoff-return huddle before that opening kickoff. He pointed in praise at Roethlisberger after that 55-yard pass to Wilson on the exhibition's second play from scrimmage. He rubbed Wilson's helmet in congratulations after the 80-yard drive to the inaugural touchdown, by running back Najeh Davenport. Later, he stayed mostly removed, a manager at work.

"You know what," nose guard Chris Hoke said. "Coach Tomlin is doing a great job. Coach Cowher was an icon. Coach Tomlin, he's his own man. His philosophy is, we're here, we're professional athletes, we can get ourselves ready to play."

Added offensive tackle Max Starks, "Coach Tomlin definitely demands that respect. He's a great guy. We look forward to playing for him."

The debut difference? A pre-kickoff interview with the NFL Network's Deion Sanders.

"That was unique," Tomlin admitted. "That was about the only thing new and exciting that happened to me, giving an interview 30 seconds before kickoff.

"Maybe I'll be more excited next month. I'm sure I will when we open in Cleveland."

In 35 days, he and his Steelers will return to northeast Ohio and start for real.


Chuck Finder can be reached at cfinder@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1724.