Originally Posted by
Northern_Blitz
I hate the "Rooney Rule" argument because it doesn't stand up if you look at anything outside of Tomlin's skin color.
His hire is almost exactly the same as Cowher's. Both promising, young, passionate coaches moving up the coaching ranks mentored by very good coaches that probably gave them strong recommendations despite them not having lots of experience.
I guess the biggest difference would be that Tomlin's recommendation came from Dungy. He's a guy who won a ring with us (led the team in Ints in a SB season), then coached our DBs, then was promoted to our DC. He later became a HC for Indy and was Tomlin's employer. So, his "ties to Pittsburgh" were that he's part of the 2nd generation of Noll's coaching tree and directly trained by a guy who was part of the Steel Curtain. I'm sure that the Rooneys put a lot of faith in that recommendation (another perk of having an ownership group that players respect).
But even this isn't super different from Cowher. Though his contributions to the Steelers weren't nearly what Dungy's were, Marty did get a cup of coffee of the Steelers roster in 71 (before being traded again that season and ultimately retiring to pursue coaching).
And in hindsight, it's OBVIOUS that Tomlin was the best choice of the three potential hires. The Rooney's have been awesome at hiring good coaches and creating a good environment for them to thrive in. Or maybe they just rolled snake eyes three times in a row.
They are basically the same...except for one super obvious and totally trivial detail.
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