In a world where everything is judged with 20/20 hindsight
and meticulously dissected, the outcome of a decision is always going to be the
basis for the judgment of that decision’s genius or stupidity. It’s always been
that way, especially in the sports world, going back as long as guys with keyboards
have been criticizing the guys on the field. Especially now, in our frighteningly rapid news cycle, it’s even more true that while the enraged social media
masses will sit quietly in the intervening seconds between the decision being
made and the actual outcome, the reaction will be increasingly polarized the
moment the outcome has actually been decided.
You generally don’t get a lot of people criticizing a fake
field goal or the utilization of timeouts, for example, until after the fallout
from said decision has already started to settle. But trust that when something
goes wrong – or right – everyone will have their two cents to throw into the
fray until we’ve got a Scrooge McDuck-like pile of penny opinions just waiting
to be dived into if you’re masochistic enough.
There’s nothing wrong with any of this, mind you. It’s what
we do and it’s the world we live in, especially as sports fans, and certainly
as citizens of a world that now consumes social media like a fire sucking up
oxygen. Or perhaps, more accurately, like, well… a human sucking up oxygen.
After all, look around and you’d think we need these devices to breathe.
It’s just so EASY to have knee-jerk reactions to everything.
So when they start to pile up, it can be easy to slough them off, ignore them,
or otherwise show indifference. It’s all just the white noise of what seems to
be a rage meter constantly pinned in the red zone.
Which brings us to Mike Tomlin and the red zone. Specifically,
his decision to kick a field goal from the 3 yard line when down by 5 points
with just 3 minutes left.
If Tomlin were a Bill Cowher-type, who almost always erred
on the side of caution and prudence, and who had reason to believe in his
defense after a long afternoon, none of us would blink twice at the decision.
But after an afternoon – and a season – filled with two-point conversions, 4th
down attempts, and on this day a confusing fake field goal try gone awry, Mr.
Not-Living-In-His-Fears did just that: He feared Seattle would take the ball
after a failed 4th down attempt and move down the field to either
run out the clock on the Steelers and their two timeouts (three, if you count
the 2-minute warning) and/or score a touchdown to salt the game away. Mike Tomlin
did the exact opposite of what he’s done all season long.
And that’s where “guts,” or “balls,” or “stones,” or “onions,”
as the great Bill Raftery calls them, shriveled up into two tiny little buds of
panicked timidity.
So much of the instant-reaction criticism for Tomlin after
last night’s loss is for that fake field goal that got Landry’d and gave the
Seahawks great field position to go ahead and capitalize on a 10-point swing.
Not nearly enough blame has gone on the decision to kick that 4th
down field goal. And not because in the end it didn’t work out for the
Steelers. It’s because Mike Tomlin, who has lived and died by the
pedal-to-the-metal, no guts/no glory, “we don’t live in our fears” philosophy
since August, finally caved. Had he simply stuck to what’s worked for him the
majority of the year, perhaps Antwon Blake would still be chasing Doug Baldwin
into the great northwestern night and we’d still be talking about a rough loss
for a team that was looking to clearly stake its claim to the AFC’s first Wild
Card spot. But at least we wouldn’t be left to wonder why Tomlin had backed
down.
For a coach fast-approaching a decade as the head coach of
one of the league’s storied franchises, he’s clearly become used to the job
security that belongs to the man in that role. His devil-may-care attitude
toward 2-point plays, 4th down conversions, and usage of timeouts
all seemed to point to man achieving Peter Gibbons-level enlightenment on the
job. You half-expected Coach T to walk into his Tuesday press conference and promptly
start gutting a trout while answering questions about the quickness of 3rd
string offensive linemen’s feet.
On Sunday evening, that all changed, and at the worst
possible time.
Again, I’m willing to forgive the perplexing
Jones-to-Villanueva fake field goal because it fell in line with what Tomlin
has done all year. Backing down at the 3-yard line down by 5 though smacks of a
guy who became scared of his own shadow, or for some reason or another just
finally realized what this year’s team is capable of and couldn’t stomach the
idea of losing a grip on it by coming up 9 feet short on 4th and
Goal. It gives the appearance that the cacophony of questions that have rained
down on Mike Tomlin in regards to his risk-taking, his decision-making, and his
leadership in the clutch all came home to roost at the worst possible time. At
a time when the Steelers most needed their head coach to be oblivious to the
white noise of that rage meter constantly pinned in the red zone, he heard it
ringing in his ears as loudly as the 12th Man. He thought ahead to
the critics and their meticulous dissection with 20/20 hindsight, and rather
than live in the decision, sticking to his philosophy – showing some “guts,” or
“balls,” or “onions,” – he did just what he insists he never does, and he lived
in the outcome. Mike Tomlin lived in his fears.
