It’s hard to get to a Super Bowl

For everybody whose coach isn’t Belichick and QB isn’t Brady, that is

Mike Tomlin’s critics have lined up and taken their shots. You know what they’re saying. His team is undisciplined. The locker room is out of control. Team Turmoil. A circus. Tomlin is horrible at clock management. He’s worse at replay challenges. He loses too often to teams he should beat. The criticism goes on and on.

But the No. 1 condemnation of Tomlin, by far, is he doesn’t win enough in the playoffs despite having a franchise quarterback. He is 8-7 in the postseason with Ben Roethlisberger. They won the Super Bowl after the 2008 season and went back to the Super Bowl after the 2010 season but have won just three playoff games in the past eight years.

I’m here to tell you Tomlin isn’t alone in failing.

Don Shula comes to mind. He won an NFL-best 347 games, including playoffs, but made it to just one Super Bowl with Dan Marino. The Miami Dolphins lost Super Bowl XIX after the 1984 season to the San Francisco 49ers. They were 6-7 in the postseason during the Shula/Marino era.

How about New Orleans’ Sean Payton, the NFL’s longest-tenured coach after New England’s Bill Belichick? He and his franchise quarterback, Drew Brees, won the Super Bowl after the 2009 season but haven’t been back. They missed the playoffs five times since Payton took over in 2006. They are 8-6 in the postseason, although some think they should be 9-5 and headed to Super Bowl LIII. Pass interference? What pass interference?

Seattle’s Pete Carroll won the Super Bowl after the 2013 season and went back to the Super Bowl the next season with quarterback Russell Wilson. He is 9-6 in the postseason with the Seahawks — 8-5 with Wilson — and 10-8 dating to his days with the Patriots and New York Jets.

Mike McCarthy had Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers as his quarterbacks in Green Bay before being fired this season, his 13th with the Packers. His team won Super Bowl XLV against Tomlin and the Steelers — his only trip to the big game — but missed the playoffs the past two seasons. McCarthy was 10-8 in the postseason.

Baltimore’s John Harbaugh won the Super Bowl after the 2012 season but missed the playoffs four times in five years before this season. Joe Flacco is no longer a franchise quarterback but was good enough in the Ravens’ Super Bowl run to throw 11 touchdown passes without an interception.

Andy Reid is 2-5 in the playoffs with the Kansas City Chiefs, 12-14 overall if you go back to his time with the Philadelphia Eagles. He went to one Super Bowl after the 2004 season with the Eagles.

Jason Garrett is 2-3 in the postseason in nine seasons as Dallas Cowboys coach with Tony Romo and Dak Prescott as his quarterbacks. He has never made it past the divisional round. The Cowboys haven’t been to a Super Bowl since the 1995 season when they beat the Steelers in Super Bowl XXX.

Other teams have been worse.

Cleveland, Detroit, Jacksonville and Houston have not played in a Super Bowl. Arizona, Atlanta, Buffalo, Carolina, Cincinnati, Minnesota, Tennessee and San Diego/Los Angeles haven’t won one.

I’m not too smart, but I sense a trend.

“Win a Super Bowl? It’s hard to win a game in the NFL,” Roethlisberger has said.

Well, for just about everybody.

New England’s Belichick and Tom Brady are the exception. Their team played in the past eight AFC championship games — 13 overall — and is headed to its ninth Super Bowl in their 19 seasons together. They will match the Steelers’ six Super Bowl wins if they beat the Los Angeles Rams Feb. 3. The Steelers needed three coaches and two quarterbacks to do it.

Win or lose against the Rams, the accomplishments by Belichick and Brady will never be matched by another coach and quarterback combination.

I’m guessing that won’t appease the Tomlin critics, though.