Tomlin: Greatness is all about drive

Tuesday, March 24, 2009
By Ed Bouchette, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/


Peter Diana / Post-Gazette

It's not hunger that drives coach Mike Tomlin in his quest for the Steelers' seventh Super Bowl title.


DANA POINT, Calif. -- Different coach, different year, different players, even -- soon -- different ownership. Mike Tomlin knows all about how the Steelers fell flat on their face the previous time they entered the season as Super Bowl champions. He hopes for one more difference this time: The outcome.

That 2006 season turned into one big Super Bowl hangover for the Steelers that began with one big headache for their quarterback and ended with an 8-8 record, no playoffs and the end of the road for coach Bill Cowher, who resigned after that season.

None of that means much to Tomlin as he prepares his team to defend its sixth NFL championship.

"It's not something that I'm going to attempt to avoid," Tomlin said yesterday at the NFL meetings. "I think if I attempt to avoid it, I may acknowledge the possibility of it happening exists. I'm not willing to do that.

"We simply are just going to prepare and attack the challenges that lie ahead for us. We know that things that happened in the past are things that happened in the past, and it may affect how we're judged from a perception standpoint. But it's not going to dictate how we work or how we approach our business."

Tomlin spoke at length publicly yesterday for the first time in seven weeks, or since he appeared the day after his team won Super Bowl XLIII in Tampa, Fla., at the winner's news conference Feb. 2. He has taken a low-key public approach since he and his players paraded through downtown Pittsburgh Feb. 3.

"I'm a private person by nature," Tomlin explained. "This is what I do, it's not who I am. I understand that it's necessary that people get to know me. I have somewhat of a public job. I'd like to think that the longer I'm on my job, the more I'll simply be evaluated by the quality of my work, and the necessity to hear myself talk this time of the year when it doesn't matter will be less and less."

He does not want his 2009 team to be hungry as much as driven, he said.
"Hungry is a word that I've been analyzing here of late. It's not hunger that drives me, it's not hunger that needs to drive our football team. Hunger and thirst are things that can be quenched. We have to be a driven group, we have to seek greatness. I think driven is a more appropriate word, it's a word I tend to use with them as we prepare for '09."

That preparation will change a bit in light of the Steelers having played games into February. Tomlin and Garrett Giemont, his conditioning coordinator, developed a plan to take the long season into account this year.

"In order to be a candidate for a championship-caliber team you have to work hard, but within that we have to find a delicate balance of working smart," Tomlin said. "And we have to acknowledge what has happened to us here in the past few months in terms of what we have done to our bodies as a football team."

So, young players who did not play much or at all last season are working at team headquarters now. Tomlin will stagger other players' starting dates based on the number of snaps they took last season.

Tomlin likes his team, even if he has lost a few players to free agency such as Nate Washington and Bryant McFadden. The Steelers re-signed nine of their own free agents but no one else's over the past 3Â 1/2 weeks of the signing period.

"I think, really, it's kind of in line the way we approach our business. I think it's consistent to what's happened here in the past and probably what's going to happen here in the future.

"We value the growth and development of our guys, we're going to try to retain as many of those guys as we can. We understand what comes with being successful, that sometimes people are going to value your players and sometimes in the process you're going to lose some of them. That comes with the territory. I think we're all comfortable where we are right now in free agency."

Ed Bouchette can be reached at ebouchette@post-gazette.com.
First published on March 24, 2009 at 12:00 am