I did a little research on this because some don't think Mike Tomlin playing to competition is a thing. So here's a thread. bsky.app/profile/late... - ThreadSky

lateroundqb.bsky.social • 97 days ago

I did a little research on this because some don't think Mike Tomlin playing to competition is a thing. So here's a thread. https://bsky.app/profile/lateroundqb.bsky.social/post/3lbj4uxheis2n

Reposted from JJ Zachariason

Every Steelers fan in America knew they were going to lose tonight. Because they’ve watched Mike Tomlin do this for almost 20 years.

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lateroundqb.bsky.social•97 days ago

The question here is: Does Mike Tomlin perform poorly against bad opponents? There are about a thousand ways to analyze this. There's a lot of gray area here, so let's get on the same page with that. I did go about it in one specific way, though...

lateroundqb.bsky.social•97 days ago

To me, this isn't about Tomlin versus teams with losing records. It's about Tomlin versus teams who are exceptionally bad. It seems like (vibes) Tomlin always loses one or two games a year to REALLY bad teams. So I framed this query off of that...

lateroundqb.bsky.social•97 days ago

Via Stathead, I looked at every game since 2014 where a team faced an opponent who had 5 or fewer wins. So 10 years against bad teams. Five is an arbitrary cutoff, but I didn't want to include, say, a 7-9 (7-10 these days) team when that's not nearly as bad. This excludes 2024.

lateroundqb.bsky.social•97 days ago

The Steelers have been one of the better teams in football record-wise during this time. Tomlin has not, after all, ever had a losing season. Well, in games against teams who finished with 5 or fewer wins, Pittsburgh has a 74% win percentage. That's 22nd in the NFL.

lateroundqb.bsky.social•97 days ago

And that's alarming when the Steelers have not been the 22nd-best team in football during this time period. (Also excludes this year, remember). They've won some big games as underdogs in the regular season, but they've also lost some winnable games. That's what the Tomlin narrative is about.

lateroundqb.bsky.social•97 days ago

I don't need to hear that "Tomlin is a bad coach" or that the Steelers need to fire him. That's not what this is about. I'm merely trying to show, in one way, that there's merit to the idea that Tomlin essentially plays to competition pretty frequently. Thanks for reading.

ffyinzer.bsky.social•97 days ago

Short week? CHECK
Coming off an emotional win vs BAL? CHECK
CLE defense peaking? CHECK
Primetime game at home for CLE? CHECK
Blinding snow storm? CHECK

CLE gets its second SuperBowl in three weeks. Gotta love Nick Chubb. We're onto the Bengals...

redditff.bsky.social•97 days ago

@mikekash.bsky.social

mikekash.bsky.social•97 days ago

ryanmaxx.bsky.social•97 days ago

Really interesting and frustrating!

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