Tomlin Among N.F.L.’s New Wave of Coaches

Sports of The Times

By WILLIAM C. RHODEN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/
January 19, 2009


Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney (L), president Art Rooney II (2nd L), Santonio Holmes and head coach Mike Tomlin (R) celebrate after their team's victory against the Baltimore Ravens in the NFL's AFC Championship football game in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, January 18, 2009.(Reuters)

PITTSBURGH: Mike Tomlin’s Pittsburgh Steelers are going to the Super Bowl.

In just his second year as the Steelers’ boss — and his first time as a head coach — Tomlin has taken a group of veterans, won them over and put his stamp on this team. He has made it all Pittsburgh but distinctly Tomlin.

Tomlin’s first Super Bowl trip was guaranteed with four and a half minutes left in the game, when safety Troy Polamalu — one of those Steelers’ core veterans — intercepted a pass from the Ravens’ young Joe Flacco and ran 40 yards for a touchdown.

Fittingly, Tomlin’s Super Bowl opponent will be the Arizona Cardinals, who are coached by Ken Whisenhunt. In a season of coaching upheaval, Tomlin and Whisenhunt represent shift before our eyes, a wave of new first-time head coaches.

Tomlin and Whisenhunt were hired by their respective teams within days of each other in January 2007. In two weeks, they’ll share the greatest stage of their professional lives: the Super Bowl.

After the game, Tomlin spoke about what reaching the Super Bowl means to the Rooney family and to his team. “For me, I am just happy for all parties involved,” he said. “I see the personal sacrifice that people from our team make on a daily basis for that to happen.”

The practice of automatically recycling established head coaches has given way — for now — to experimenting with the untried and new. The short-term results have been stunning.

John Harbaugh carried the Baltimore Ravens to within a game of the Super Bowl in his first season as head coach. Atlanta, demoralized and tattered, was brought back to life — and the playoffs — by the first-year coach Mike Smith. The Miami Dolphins, winners of one game last season, reached the playoffs under the first-year coach Tony Sparano.

The N.F.L., notoriously, is a copy-cat league. We’ve seen this already in a rash of hiring of young head coaches. Veteran coaches like Dan Reeves, Marty Schottenheimer and Jim Fassel make it known that they want back in the coaching ranks, but no teams come calling.

The young Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, 32, was hired in Denver to replace Mike Shanahan. After Tampa Bay suddenly fired Jon Gruden last week, the 32-year-old defensive coordinator Raheem Morris was named head coach. The St. Louis Rams hired Steve Spagnuolo, the Giants’ defensive coordinator, as head coach.

Significantly, when Shanahan was fired in Denver, teams didn’t come banging on his door. The Cleveland Browns hired Eric Mangini, the recently fired Jets head coach, and Dallas, which most of us thought would throw itself at Shanahan, hasn’t showed any indication of making a move.

The pendulum never stops in the middle; look for the trend toward first-time coaches to continue for the next few seasons, or as long as the current wave of wunderkind coaches wins a bushel of championships.

“This isn’t just a temporary phase,” Dennis Green, the former Vikings and Cardinals coach, said Sunday. “This is permanent. You’re seeing a shift to a new guard.”

Tomlin is 36, and his meteoric rise from defensive backs coach under Tony Dungy at Tampa Bay to defensive coordinator in Minnesota to Super Bowl coach in Pittsburgh will certainly have a positive impact on young assistants who aspire to be head coaches.

But new doesn’t necessary mean young.

Steve Spagnuolo will be 50 next December, Harbaugh turns 46 next December. Whisenhunt will be 47 next month.

New refers to fresh ideas, a fresh voice a new way of dealing with the contemporary N.F.L. player: well compensated but desperately in need of discipline, toughness and an understanding of history.

Earlier this season, when Steelers running back Willie Parker complained publicly that Pittsburgh wasn’t running enough, Tomlin dealt with the issue firmly without being overly harsh.

He reminded Parker that the Steelers organization was larger than individual aspirations.

“The issue for us has been, is, and hopefully will continue to be winning — that’s my interpretation of Steelers football,” Tomlin told reporters at the time. “Every morning I come to work, I walk past five Lombardis, not five rushing titles. The issue is winning.”

About Parker, Tomlin said, “He needs to be a little more careful with things he says and how he says it because it can be misinterpreted as uninformed or selfish, of which he is neither.”

Parker has not been heard from since, content to run with his legs and not his mouth.

Tomlin is in the vanguard of vibrant N.F.L. coaches with fresh legs.

Next season has “new” stamped all over it.

E-mail: wcr@nytimes.com