You’re making an argument about the HOF and yet most people agree with you. If Tomlin retired today most people have him in. But in this thread you labeled him/his career as excellent. My position is that words like that should be reserved for the very best who have ever done it. Excellent coaches are not mediocre over a long period of time. And if you label Tomlin as excellent, you better do it for guys like McCarthy and Payton, otherwise the word is meaningless. Obviously you aren’t required to do so, but I’d love for you to explain to me why you and others think Tomlin is at a higher level than guys like McCarthy and Payton. My guess is you won’t because it confirms that your thoughts betrayed you.
For starters, if you read any of the posts I have written here, I have never talked about McCarthy or Payton because the subject is Tomlin. They are mostly immaterial to any assessment of him. The question is Tomlin’s accomplishments. The other coaches are your deflection.
Regarding McCarthy and Payton, for starters, I think that Payton is excellent and McCarthy is very good. I think Payton has a better resume than McCarthy because he did more with less. Also, McCarthy was fired because he basically flamed out, which is very rare for a high level coach.
Both McCarthy and Payton had better QBs than Tomlin did. You will rarely find anyone credible that says Ben was a better player than either Rodgers or Brees. I don’t think anyone thinks Ben was better than Rodgers and maybe there are a few people that think he was better than Brees. Neither guy had to go through Tom Brady and Manning for the bulk of their coaching careers, but Tomlin did.
With Brady and Manning, it is not as much about the head to head over time but the playoff positioning. They both had some nicer opportunities with seeding because he did not have to deal with guys like that in his conference during the regular season.
Ben, by his nature, was solidly inconsistent relative to those guys. Tomlin had to navigate that, along with some personalities that neither Payton nor McCarthy had to deal with. But, he made it work. And, though people here try to discredit it, he never has really lost (which both Payton and McCarthy have).
Payton and McCarthy each have four losing seasons, with McCarthy getting capped for losing with a stacked roster. Tomlin has zero losing seasons. It does mean something though in Payton’s case, his teams were always competitive.
Was Tomlin ever the favorite to win the AFC? I doubt it. McCarthy was the favorite a good deal with Rodgers.
To your question of who I think is better, I think Tomlin and Payton are a class above McCarthy at this point but McCarthy is a really good coach that any team would be fortunate to have. Just like with Tomlin now, I would not be surprised if McCarthy has a great second chapter to his career. Kind of like Andy Reid.
You have a later thread where you ask who else inherited a HOF level QB near or in his prime. Here you go for relatively recent coaches (say the last 20 years):
Mike Tomlin
Tony Dungy
Jim Caldwell
Mike McCarthy
Norv Turner
Mike McCoy
Ben McAdoo
