Dianna Russini's NFL Coach Of The Year

NFL Insider is a big fan of Mike Tomlin's work this season.

Transcript

00:00If you were to make a list right now of your head coach of the year candidates,

00:04where would you put Mike Tomlin right now?

00:06You're right on the right girl for you if you love Mike Tomlin, right? He is my number one.

00:10I have him as coach of the year right now just because our expectations for this season,

00:15I mean, I barely went to training camp this year because I'm like,

00:18what are the Steelers going to be? Who knows what Justin Fields is going to be?

00:21I'm not really sure Russell Wilson's ever going to be able to get back to the guy he got. Look

00:25at him in Denver. Sean Payton's one of the best offensive minded coaches and he improved him,

00:30but that wasn't working. It's over. And here we are. Arthur Smith, brilliantly figuring out how

00:37to make it simple for this offense. Think about Pittsburgh as a city. Usually by now they're

00:43screaming about their offensive coordinator. And now Arthur Smith is being praised for being able

00:47to get the most out of Justin at the start of the season. Mike Tomlin going in there,

00:51standing on his own island, making this call, making this decision to bring in Russell Wilson

00:56and then finding success behind him and figuring out the identity of the Steelers, which is pretty

01:02similar to what it's been in years past, except now the offense is functionable and they're able

01:07to do it with both of these quarterbacks. I had Cam Hayward on Scoops TV podcast yesterday and

01:12just talking about what Tomlin is like in a week where they're preparing for such a magnetic,

01:17incredible talent and Jaden Daniels in the commit with the commanders. He said Tomlin's walking

01:22around practice, just yelling out stats that the rookie has accomplished already. Just getting in

01:27the defense's face already, just trying to get them ready for what they're going to see because

01:32they know they've got their hands full. And I do think this is going to be a really big test for

01:39this defense, knowing that, you know, Jaden has done some incredible things with Cliff Kingsbury

01:43call that offense. So for this, since we're at that midpoint here, for what Mike Tomlin has done,

01:50he's my number one. I got Kevin O'Connell in my mind, probably right behind, and I got Andy Reid,

01:55which we can talk about this another time. People like to argue with me on the whole Andy Reid thing

01:59because he's got Patrick Mahomes. He's doing it. There is no Super Bowl hangover in Kansas City.