BleacherCoaches.com

Agree with most all your observations there Op but:

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If Tomlin was going to get rid of the 3-4...why wouldn't he can Lebeau? It will be interesting however to see who these two guys get along. Remember it wasn't long ago that Lebeau was head coachin Cincy...two head coaches, two defensive coordinators...?
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I really don't think this will be issue. Apparently this Tomlin is no dummy & Dick L. is one of the most respected (& successful) coaches in entire league. Think about it M.T. employed a 4-3 but first move is retention of the D-Coordinator, who happens to prefer the 3-4....I'd view it as a sign of astuteness.....3/4, 5/2, 6/1 whatever; it's still defense & it's about stopping the other team...no doubt D. L. is one of the very best.

OP u are right he did make some plays but when as far as draft went first round if you are gonna take a wide out personally i woud have preferred a bigger one, Cal Johnson esk. And i also thought linemen would have helped this year but the years ver and we start again hpefully a good draft but we shall see.

All I wanted was a young, motivated, coordinator, preferrably defensive, and thats exactly what we got and I can't complain. All you hear is good things about this guy and his dedication to a blue collar work ethic fits right in with the Pittsburgh mentality. And technically he is part of the Dungy coaching tree, that looks pretty good right now. I thought because of Weisenhunt leaving and the Steelers being prohibited from talking to Rivera, Grimm would have been a shoe in. Tomlin must have done something right or Grimm just wasn't a good canidate. Grimm after all didn't even get named O-Coordinator with old coaching pal Weisenhunt, which leads me to think he isnt head coach material. I just hope it wasn't the case of taking the lesser of two evils. We will see though.

I agree with OP on the Holmes draft. I think he has a bright career ahead of him and he was best reciever down the stretch. You don't have to be a 6'4" reciever in this league to succeed. Just look at Hines Ward.

MT was a shoe-in. Grimm didn't have a chance. Rooney lobbied for minority interviews the so-called "Rooney Rule" so hiring a minority candidate was a given. To me it looks like they got a good one!

I guess I can see why Crimson would bash Santonio Holmes. I mean, he did end the Steelers year this year in OT... The ANTI-TOMMY MADDOX way.

I don't think MT was a shoe-in and I don't think the Rooney Rule had anything to do with the hiring other then the fact that they had to interview a minority canditate to full fill the rule's obligation. Because thats all the Rooney Rule does, it requires organizations to interview minorities, but it says nothing about having to hire them. There was no outside or inside pressure on the Rooney's or the organization to hire a minority, even though he lobbied for the rule. The only pressure I think they felt was that of possibly losing candidates on the count of waiting for Rivera's season to end. Throw in the fact that MT was a rather unknown first year coordinator in the league and he was competing with a very successful 3 year D-Coordinator, a innovative O-Coordinator who helped win a Superbowl last year, and a home grown product of Pittsburgh, that was very familiar with the organization and personal. I would say MT was a long shot to get the job. But things worked out the way they did and like I said he must have said something very impressive to get it over Grimm or Grimm just isn't head coach material.

It's hard for anyone to say if this is a good hire yet or not. I certainly hope it is. What I'm tired of hearing is the deal being made about him being black. I don't care if he's black, blue, purple, green - if he can bring a Super Bowl to the Steelers in 5 or 6 years, he's a great hire.

Here's an interesting take on the hiring of Tomlin over Grimm. Taken from profootballtalk.com. I seriously doubt that the Rooney's would let anyone push them around (even the commish), but it's an interesting read anyway. There was some confusion for a day or two as to who the actual hire was.

POSTED 5:15 p.m. EST, January 24, 2007

STEELERS SITUATION STILL BIZARRE

We reported on Tuesday night about a strong rumor making the rounds in Mobile, Alabama regarding the manner in which the Steelers' decision to hire Mike Tomlin to be the team's next head coach went down. As the rumor goes, the Steelers offered the job to Russ Grimm, he accepted the job, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell suggested to Dan Rooney that the team should hire a minority candidate (either Tomlin or Ron Rivera), and Rooney decided to do so.

Though we don't expect anyone who knows the truth on this one to admit it in any setting other than a deathbed confession, the circumstantial evidence supports the notion that the Steelers inexplicably flipped from Grimm to Tomlin.

First of all, Clark Judge of CBSSportsline.com (which maintains the NFL's official web site) cites three unnamed sources in reporting that Grimm was indeed offered the job before it went to Tomlin. However, Judge's report makes no mention of any arm-twisting by the league office (which might have something to do with the fact that CBSSportsline.com maintains the NFL's official web site).

Second, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports that Steelers president Art Rooney II candidly has admitted that the team engaged in negotiations with Grimm regarding a contract, a sentiment echoed in Judge's story. Rooney claims, however, that Grimm was told that the decision to hire him had not yet been made. "Our intention was the numbers were going to be done before we made the final decision," Rooney said.

Third, the Tribune-Review also reports that Tomlin's agent, Brian Levy, said that no negotiations began between Tomlin and the team until after an offer was extended and accepted on Sunday.

Fourth, Judge reports that the Steelers claim that they did discuss numbers with Tomlin. "[W]e . . . discussed numbers with Mike Tomlin's people, too," Rooney said. "And the discussion of numbers was something we wanted to have out of the way before we made a final decision on it."

So why would the Steelers say that they discussed numbers with Grimm and Tomlin while Tomlin's agent claims that numbers weren't discussed with him until an offer was extended to and accepted by Tomlin?

These facts (with all due respect to the Steelers) suggest that no discussions occurred with either candidate regarding numbers until after there was an informal offer and acceptance of the job. The only other plausible explanation would be that Levy is lying about the way the negotiations unfolded (which he would have no reason to do) -- or that he suffered a significant closed head injury at some time between Saturday and Tuesday.

But what of the Saturday reports that the Steelers had selected Tomlin? Without knowing who the sources were for those reports, it's impossible to know whether the sources knew the true state of affairs, or whether they took a liberty with the truth in order to help Tomlin get hired.

We're not faulting anyone who reported that Tomlin had been picked by the Steelers. But unless the source for those reports was Dan Rooney, Art Rooney II, or Kevin Colbert, there's a chance that someone who seemingly was in the know was putting out bad information in order to disrupt the Grimm negotiations long enough to give Goodell a chance to change Dan Rooney's mind.

For example, what if Goodell or someone high up in the league office had called Michael Silver of Sports Illustrated and said, "Don't quote me on this, but the Rooneys have just called to tell us that they are hiring Mike Tomlin." Silver would have been justified in reporting that Tomlin was the choice. And though Silver might never have trusted the source in the future if Grimm got the job, it arguably would have been a small price to pay to achieve what was perceived to be the greater goal of getting the Steelers to pick Tomlin.

This is all speculation, and as we've said the truth on this one is unlikely to ever come out. But the facts that are available suggest strongly to us that there's far more to this story than meets the eye.