Mike Tomlin is facing a lot of criticism following the Steelers’ loss to the Houston Texans. That is justifiable in many ways. Pittsburgh has failed to embrace many modern NFL ideas and appears to be falling behind. But is Tomlin’s entire offensive philosophy out of date? Marcus Spears told Stephen A. Smith on First Take that he believes this.
Spears compared Tomlin and the Steelers to Bill Belichick and the Patriots, highlighting Tomlin’s offensive philosophy and lack of explosive plays as a major issue that Pittsburgh is now dealing with. Spears believes it all starts at the top, whether it’s Matt Canada or something else.
“What we’re watching right now is Mike Tomlin and Bill Belichick not go to where the NFL is,” Spears stated. “Right, it’s always difficult to talk about coaches like this because they’ve had so much success, and we rely on it…To win football games nowadays, you must score 40 points. You can’t go out on the field and stop guys and expect to score 20 points and run the ball 40 times and win football games. You don’t win like that any longer. Both coaches have never recognized this in the past. It doesn’t mean they can’t coach; they just haven’t recognized that we need to be explosive. You have both down in and down out.
It’s no secret that Tomlin and the Steelers have made running the football a part of their identity. He mentions it every week, but is it embraced to the point of being harmful? There is a case to be made that Pittsburgh does not prioritize developing their passing game, and as a result, the team will continue to suffer in the current NFL.
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