Mike Tomlin coached several stout teams during his 19 seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers. When asked to name the best one, he didn’t choose his 2007 Super Bowl champions.
The new NBC analyst made an interesting selection for his best Steelers team on TODAY’s “Glass Half Full.” Tomlin highlighted the 2015 squad, which went 10-6 in the regular season before losing to Peyton Manning’s Denver Broncos in the AFC Divisional Round.
“The best team I coached probably didn’t win,” Tomlin said. “It was probably in the mid-teens, 2015, 16. We lost. Denver won it with Peyton that year at the end of his career, and we lost to those guys in Denver.”
“We had the goods”
Seven of Tomlin’s Steelers squads earned 11 or more regular-season wins, peaking at 13-3 in 2017. Pittsburgh had won two conference titles before 2015 and went to the AFC Championship Game in 2016.
Given his reputation as a defensive-minded coach, it’s also interesting that Tomlin chose one of his better offenses. Those 2015 Steelers finished fourth in scoring, the highest ranking of Tomlin’s tenure, despite playing five games without Ben Roethlisberger.
Roethlisberger played in the postseason, but two star teammates missed Pittsburgh’s elimination loss. Le’Veon Bell tore his MCL six games into the season, and Antonio Brown suffered a concussion on an infamous hit by Vontaze Burfict in the Steelers’ first-round win over the Cincinnati Bengals.
The Steelers gained more total yards (396) than the Broncos (324) as heavy road underdogs, but Denver escaped Mile High with a 23-16 win behind five Brandon McManus field goals.
Tomlin seems to think that team could have earned him another ring with some better breaks.
“Sometimes things don’t come together for you,” Tomlin said. “We were in that stadium that particular day without Le’Veon Bell, without Antonio Brown due to injury, and so the journey came to an end for us. But that team? That team was as talented as any team I’ve ever been around. We had the goods.”
