(Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
The Pittsburgh Steelers have achieved their on-field success with a number of key components. Today, we take a look at the coaching staff that led them to their record sixth Super Bowl championship, which returns intact.
The franchise has one of the most enviable track records when it comes to head coaches, and Mike Tomlin has started his tenure with the look that he will continue the trend.
Heading into his third season as the Steelers head coach, Tomlin will be looking to avoid a letdown following a Super Bowl victory like the one that characterized the 2006 season.
Tomlin is key to orchestrating the coaching staff as a whole and making sure that all the parts are working together. Many teams get caught up with x's and o's gurus when they pick a head coach. However, the one key component they fail to evaluate is leadership.
Mike Tomlin is the epitome of leadership. After he was hired, he retained key pieces of the coaching staff that helped make a smooth transition and ensured his future success.
His main role is to keep the team focused and motivated. His calm and cool demeanor can come across almost as being soft, until you see him get riled up and jump into a players face.
Many on the team have stated that he earned the team's respect very quickly after the team passed on any internal candidates to replace former coach Bill Cowher. The two couldn't have more different styles, but yet they achieve the same goal.
Cowher wanted to be in his players' faces and was known to get into screaming fits, even at the punter. While Tomlin gets his fair share of face time with each player, he does so in a more relaxed and mentor-like style most of the time.
Many around football appreciate the football acumen that Tomlin possesses. Having started his football career as a wide receiver for William and Mary, he turned to coaching right out of the gate.
Starting as a wide receivers coach at Virginia Military Institute, he quickly learned that by being a wide receiver he was intimately familiar with the best ways to stop one. With that knowledge, he quickly became a hot commodity as a defensive backs coach.
The improvement in the Steelers secondary can be easily seen with the play of Ike Taylor and the recently departed Bryant McFadden. In only two seasons, Tomlin was able to harness the best of each of these players and turn them into one of the league's best tandems.
Late-round pick William Gay has made excellent strides under Tomlin's tutelage and looks to compete for a starting position this season.
Tomlin has also made good decisions regarding his coaching staff, retaining two of the most respected men in football to help him run 2008's number one defense, Assistant Coach/Defensive Line Coach John Mitchell and Defensive Coordinator Dick LeBeau.
John Mitchell has been with the Steelers on the defensive side of the ball for 15 years, making him the longest tenured coach with the team. A former All-American defensive end for Alabama under coach Paul "Bear" Bryant, Mitchell was the first African-American player for the Crimson Tide.
Breaking the color barrier again in 1990, he was the first African-American defensive coordinator in the Southeastern Conference (SEC). Having coached under greats like Paul "Bear" Bryant and Lou Holtz to start his career, Mitchell has become a great developer of talent.
He has been in charge of the defensive line during the rise of current players Casey Hampton and Aaron Smith, and also tutored reserve players like Brett Keisel and Chris Hoke into very valuable contributors (even a starter in the case of Keisel).
With the exception of Hampton, the Steelers have rarely used high draft picks on defensive linemen, yet with Mitchell's help, the unit has thrived in the 3-4 scheme.
Defensive Coordinator, Dick LeBeau, is known league wide as a guru of confusing opposing defenses. Lebeau is the architect of the famed zone blitz scheme that Pittsburgh has utilized for more than a decade.
Spending 14 years in the NFL as a player and another 36 as a coach has taught him so many things about football, he could probably never teach anyone all of it.
It's the wealth of knowledge and unparallelled creativity of his 71-year-old mind that makes him stand apart from the rest.
He was recently noted to have dreamed up a new defensive scheme one night in bed and jotted it down for his players to try out the next day at practice. Truly a person who does eat, sleep, and breathe football.
"We expect stuff like that from Coach LeBeau," Linebacker James Farrior said.
Perhaps one of the greatest unseen, little-known traditions in football is Coach LeBeau's annual reading of Twas The Night Before Christmas to his defense. It sounds cheesey, but the way the players talk about it, you have to be curious.
The players say his ability to turn an innocent children's story into a motivating, touching moment is something they never expected. It's become tradition now, and every season the players embrace the ritual just like they embrace the coach they call "Dad."
During the Hall of Fame Game in Canton, the players each bought $300 throwback Dick LeBeau jerseys to lobby voters for his enshrinement into the Hall of Fame as a player.
The players have become to trust him for his strategies of maximizing talent and covering up gambles. Each player knows that following the lead of LeBeau can mean big things for your career.
Staying with Coach LeBeau when Mike Tomlin took over as head coach were Linebackers Coach Keith Butler and Defensive Backs Coach Ray Horton. Horton was promoted from an assistant defensive backs coach position when Tomlin took over.
These four men are in charge of running the defense and game-planning for a new offense each week. A lot will be riding on their shoulders entering the 2009 season, as they will enter the season carrying the tag of the league's number one defense.
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