Chuck Noll left Bill Cowher with:From 1992-2003, I'd say Bill's offense was above average when it came to talent but usually below average at QB/WR.
Bill's truly undeniable great offensive players during that time were:
Dermotti Dawson and Jerome Bettis.
Think about his 1997 team. He got them to the AFC Championship Team with:
QB - Kordell Stewart
TB - Jerome Bettis - HOF
FB - Tim Lester
WR - Charles Johnson
WR - Yancey Thigpen - Pro Bowler
TE - Jon Hayes
RT - Justin Strzelcyk
RG - Brendan Stai
C - Dirt Dawson - HOF
LG - Will Wolford
LT - John Jackson
Tomlin lost in to Blake Bortles and the Jaguars with
QB - Ben Rothlisberger - HOF
TB - Leveon Bell - Best RB in Football
FB - Rosey Nix - Pro Bowler
WR - Antonion Brown - Best WR in Football
WR - Juju Smith Shuster
WR - Martavis Bryant - Freak
LT - Vlllaneauva - Pro Bowler
LG - Foster
C - Pouncey - Pro Bowler
RG - Decastro - Pro Bowler
RT - Gilbert
Cowher never had that much offensive talent to squander and opportunity like Tomlin has.
If Tomlin can prove he can win big with Kenny he'll re-write his own history. For now, he was really good with Cowher's players. Cowher on the other hand took over a below average team and won with many of Noll's players, built his own roster many times over and won bigger then Tomlin ever has. Since Tomlin has built his own roster, he doesn't really challenge for anything.
Dermonti Dawson
Carlton Haselrig
Greg Lloyd
Hardy Nickerson
Rod Woodson
Carnell Lake
These guys were all when at their best, top players in the NFL. It can easily be argued that the guys that did not make the HOF were HOF quality guys at their best.
Cowher’s first roster also had the following guys (amongst others):
Barry Foster
Yancey Thigpen
Eric Green
John Jackson
Joel Steed
Levon Kirkland
Darren Perry
Gary Anderson
These guys were all very good at their best. Cowher’s rosters had talent from the go in Pittsburgh. It just was young under Noll and needed to mature. Cowher had a good team from the start.
The offense that you quoted above was completely turned over from Cowher to Tomlin, save Ben. But Tomlin never rebuilt anything, right?
Tomlin has won with his own players. They have drafted HOF level guys during his tenure. He has been there over 15 years now. It is kind of hard to not win with your own players when being somewhere 15 years.
This is another move the goalposts argument. If you want to argue that he has lost with a lot of excellent offensive players, fine. But also note that he was the coach when they built the entire offense and that he did not have Brown and/or Bell a few times in the playoffs when those teams were at their best.