The NFL’s Most Baffling Winning Team

An incongruence has developed in the past few years around Mike Tomlin, the head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers for 17 years. It goes something like this: Listen to a call-in radio show on the Western Pennsylvania airwaves, and you will get the impression that Tomlin is a mediocrity who doesn’t deserve his chair at the head of one of the NFL’s legacy franchises. But watch NFL players gravitate toward Tomlin, or listen to NFL coaches talk about how he practices his craft, and you will get a different idea: that Tomlin is Vince Lombardi reincarnate, but with more personality.