TOMLIN’S MISTAKES AFFECTING THE BOTTOM LINE

Aweb site called stadiumtalk.com came out with its list of the NFL’s greatest coaches earlier this month. Bill Belichick was No. 1, to no one’s surprise. Don Shula, George Halas, Vince Lombardi and Chuck Noll rounded out the Top Five. Mike Tomlin came in at No. 14, the only active coach on the list besides Belichick. All of the first 13 are in the Hall of Fame, if you assume Belichick will make it.

I heartily endorsed the list and predicted Tomlin will make it to the Hall, as well.

I feel like a real fool today. Tomlin still is an outstanding coach, still the best in the NFL after Belichick, still with a chance to make it to Canton considering his age (46), his 123-65-1 regularseason record, his win in Super Bowl XLIII and his appearance in Super Bowl XLV. But this has not been a good season for him. The Steelers have too much talent — at least offensively — to be a relatively mediocre 7-5-1 with three consecutive defeats. Their brutal 24-21 loss to the 2-10 Oakland Raiders Sunday might have been the worst day of his 12 seasons.

It started with Tomlin’s decision to keep Ben Roethlisberger out of the game for most of the second half because of a rib injury. I guess he thought the Steelers could win the game with Josh Dobbs and wanted to save Roethlisberger for the longawaited showdown with New England Sunday.

Well, Tomlin thought wrong. Dobbs did his part to win the Baltimore game Nov. 4 by completing his first NFL pass for 22 yards to JuJu Smith-Schuster on a second-and-20 play deep in Steelers territory early in the fourth quarter, but he did nothing in four series against the Raiders.

Roethlisberger came back in with 5:20 left in the game and the Steelers trailing, 17-14. He promptly completed six of six passes for 70 yards, putting the Steelers ahead, 21-17, with a 1yard touchdown pass to SmithSchuster with 2:55 left.

“Coach was kind of saying, ‘Let’s wait,’” Roethlisberger said. “He didn’t want me to go back in. He wanted to see what was going to happen. Then, he kind of gave me a look like, ‘OK, let’s go.’”

I’ve never understood that thinking. I didn’t understand it in 2007 when West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez kept Heisman Trophy-contending quarterback Pat White on the bench from the second quarter until 6 minutes were left in a game against Pitt because of a thumb injury. White finally went back in, but it was too late to save a crushing 13-9 loss. It’s no wonder Rodriguez had to leave West Virginia after he cost the Mountaineers a chance at the national championship.

If a player is healthy enough to play in the fourth quarter, why is he out of the game in the first place? Roethlisberger stayed in the locker room for treatment after halftime but returned to the field with 8:45 left in the third quarter. He should have gone back in the game right then.

“He probably could’ve come in a series or so sooner, but we were in a rhythm and flow of the game,” Tomlin said. Rhythm and flow?

With Dobbs?

I must have been watching a different game.

Tomlin’s clock management at the end might have been even worse than his handling of Roethlisberger. You can say it didn’t matter because the Steelers still had a chance to force overtime thanks to a 35-yard gain on a spectacular hook-andlateral play from Roethlisberger to James Washington to SmithSchuster. Chris Boswell slipped as he attempted a 40-yard field goal and kicked the ball into his blockers. Of course, he did. It’s been that kind of rotten year for Boswell. “It’s terrible, what else do you want me to say?” Boswell said.

But the ending doesn’t change the fact Tomlin didn’t call a timeout — it would have been his second — after a 39-yard pass play gave the Raiders the ball at the Steelers 7 with 1:46 left. He allowed the clock to run down to 1:16 before an Oakland running play gained 1 yard and then down to 34 seconds before an incomplete pass. After an Oakland incompletion on third down, Tomlin finally called a timeout — with the clock stopped — with 25 seconds left to set his defense for fourth down. The Raiders won the game with a 6-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Derek Carr to tight end Derek Carrier with 21 seconds remaining.

Roethlisberger wouldn’t have had time to pull out the game if not for that hook-and-lateral miracle. That timeout that Tomlin took back to Pittsburgh with him could have left the Steelers with no chance.

“I wanted to keep a timeout for offense,” Tomlin said. “You guys know I kind of have that mentality about it. I wasn’t sure JuJu was going to get out of bounds on the subsequent possession. I just wanted to keep a timeout.”

Again, I don’t understand that mentality. An offense can stop the clock with an incompletion or even with a spiked ball. You can’t stop the clock on defense unless you use timeouts.

“I thought we had a chance to stop them [on fourth down],” Tomlin said.

Wrong again.

The Steelers defense has turned wretched. It gave up two long touchdown drives in the fourth quarter Sunday after collapsing in the second half of a loss to the Los Angeles Chargers a week earlier.

“Stunned, man” Cam Heyward said of this latest defeat.

Tomlin promised to “look at all aspects of what we’re doing … I have to rectify that, not only what we’re doing [but] what we’ve asked those guys to do. … We’re going to absorb the negativity that comes with our current position. We understand that we created it. It’s our job to fix it.”

It’s tough enough to win in the NFL.

It’s even harder when your coach sabotages you.