No NFL coach is doing a better job than the Steelers’ Mike Tomlin

A year ago at this time, the phone lines for Pittsburgh sports radio shows were filled with callers opining about how fun and carefree life would be without Mike Tomlin. (As a regular guest on one such station for more than a decade, I’ve been peppered with questions about Tomlin the past two seasons.) The coach, on a surefire Hall of Fame path, hadn’t won a playoff game in forever, those callers pointed out, the Steelers’ offense was a blight once more, and if only the Rooney family could lure some Sean McVay wannabe to the Steel City, Pittsburgh would be a contender again.

The airwaves have a very different tone this November, with the Steelers alone atop the AFC North at 8-2 after surviving the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday, finding a way to beat a Super Bowl contender without playing close to their best game. What the Steelers did, however, was execute the hallmarks of Tomlin football - dominate time of possession, make it incredibly hard to score touchdowns, take the ball away, avoid critical penalties, thrive on special teams - and all of those little things made them two points better than Baltimore, giving them their eighth win in nine meetings with their rival.

It’s also positioned the 52-year-old Tomlin - creeping up on 200 career victories and on the job since 2007 without a losing season - to perhaps secure a coach of the year award for the first time in his remarkable career. He has now managed to win four games each this season with two quite different quarterbacks (first Justin Fields and then Russell Wilson), shattering expectations for his team before Thanksgiving and continually winning games in which the Steelers were the underdog - as they were again in Week 11. They are already on the cusp of surpassing their preseason sportsbook win total (8.5 games) and have gotten there despite their pass rush being far more tepid than usual.

“He’s doing a phenomenal job,” said one NFL general manager, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he is not permitted to publicly discuss the performance of coaches employed by other teams. “If he doesn’t win [Associated Press coach of the year] this year, he never will. Changing quarterbacks at 4-2, how many guys do that? He’s pushing all the right buttons and knows exactly how that group needs to win football games. They kind of make you beat yourself, which is a difficult thing to do in this league.”

Sunday was a microcosm of the winning script. The Steelers, winners of five straight, held the ball for an impossible 36 minutes 22 seconds, ran 20 more plays than the Ravens, took the ball away three times and gave it away just once, and won despite not scoring a touchdown. This on a day when offensive coordinator Arthur Smith made some bizarre personnel decisions in the red zone and Wilson was plenty content to chuck balls into the stands if he didn’t like what he saw. With five division games still to play, the Cleveland Browns pathetic and the Cincinnati Bengals on life support, it stands to reason that the Steelers will continue to stockpile wins. They already have victories over the Los Angeles Chargers and Denver Broncos, which could be key for playoff seeding, and they have just one AFC defeat, another vital playoff tiebreaker.

For those remaining nonbelievers, the Steelers are sixth in the NFL in points differential (plus-71), and, in a testament to Tomlin’s coaching and their ability to adjust and adapt to find ways to win, they rank second in second-half point differential (plus-80). The Steelers are third in the NFL in average time of possession (32:37) and second in turnover margin (plus-11). They have a top-five defense in yards-per-carry allowed (4.1) and in opposing passer rating (77.0) and have yielded just 17 offensive touchdowns, tied for second-fewest in the NFL. No wonder the Rooneys extended Tomlin’s contract in June again despite the silly public discourse.

You can almost smell the long-overdue hardware already. The Pittsburgh phone lines, however, will not be flooded with calls about it.

More changes in Cleveland?

The Browns look as bad as any operation in this league, even at a time when there are so many pretenders. This may not bode well for Cleveland Coach Kevin Stefanski.

Not many in the league I speak with believe Stefanski - a two-time coach of the year himself - is remotely at fault for the state of the organization, but they also know mercurial owner Jimmy Haslam well enough to guess how he might be feeling in the face of yet another lost season despite no shortage of highly paid players.

“Keep an eye on that one; I think [Haslam] does something in-season,” said another NFL GM, speaking under similar conditions. “If you study him, he seems to think he gets an advantage by getting an early jump on it. More guys are getting fired. I don’t think he’s going to sit it out.”

The Browns (2-8) have a minus-86 point differential, bottom five in the league, and at the same time seem to be having difficulty securing the stadium deal they’ve been angling for. Stefanski could end up being the fall guy for all of that sooner rather than later.

Notes from around the league

It’s unlikely that Bo Nix will catch Jayden Daniels for offensive rookie of the year - but it’s not impossible. Numerous executives in the league rave about the Broncos’ improvement and the work Coach Sean Payton is doing with the first-round pick. Denver’s run game is pedestrian at best, and while the Broncos’ defense is superb, it’s short on household names. Nix will get more attention as the Broncos make their playoff push. Nix has thrown an interception in just two of his past nine games, and he has nine touchdown passes to just one pick in his last four games, with a sparkling rating of 114.5 in those games. …

For the 49ers, it was another game in which running back Christian McCaffrey was not nearly as twitchy and explosive as normal and another game in which San Francisco wilted in the fourth quarter and the red zone and looked largely ordinary. The NFC West race is going to be wild down the stretch, with even the Seattle Seahawks still in the mix.

Could Deion Sanders and his son Shedeur end up being a package deal in the NFL? I wouldn’t discount that proposition in the least should Coach Prime put his mind to it - and he just might. In a year in which there won’t be enough established head coaches to fill the many vacancies, I wouldn’t be surprised at all to find multiple teams engaged with him.

A good number of executives around the league believe the Jacksonville Jaguars’ ownership is hoping to lure Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson to town after the season. Watching the Lions hang a 50-burger on them with ease Sunday in Detroit will only fuel that hunger. (The final score was 52-6, for those counting.) Johnson has turned down some opportunities before, but this potential payday would be significant.