PITTSBURGH — The narrative around town is that Mike Tomlin and Ben Roethlisberger have underachieved. I'm not buying it, even though I know the Steelers have won just three postseason games since their most recent Super Bowl run after the 2010 season and have collapsed at the end of the past four seasons. It's just too hard to win these days for me to say Tomlin and Roethlisberger have failed.
Too hard to win unless you're Tom Brady, of course.
What Brady has done with New England and now Tampa Bay is almost beyond belief. He will play in his 14th conference championship game Sunday when the Buccaneers face Green Bay. That is more than all NFL teams except the Steelers, San Francisco and New England have played in during the Super Bowl era, and the Patriots' success largely was due to him. He has 32 postseason wins, more than all teams but New England, Green Bay, the Steelers and Dallas. He is 6-3 in Super Bowls.
Brady makes all other quarterbacks look like underachievers. Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana each won four Super Bowls, but that was before free agency in the NFL. Just because Bradshaw did it here doesn't mean it's fair to have the same expectations of Roethlisberger. It is much harder to win now.
Maybe you should be just a little more appreciative that Tomlin and Roethlisberger won one Super Bowl, led the Steelers to another and also made it to the AFC championship game after the 2016 season. Roethlisberger, who is 13-9 in the postseason, also won a championship with Bill Cowher and made it to another AFC title game. Overall, Roethlisberger has been incredibly successful, the greatest quarterback in Steelers history.
Ask New Orleans' Sean Payton and Drew Brees how hard it is to win. They won 49 regular-season games the past four seasons but made it to the NFC championship game just once during that time — after the 2018 season. Their only Super Bowl appearance and win came after the 2009 season. Their postseason record is 9-8.
How about Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay with Mike McCarthy or Matt LaFleur as his coach? Rodgers will play in his second consecutive NFC championship game Sunday and fifth overall but has played in just one Super Bowl, when the Packers beat the Steelers after the 2010 season. Maybe he will make it two Super Bowls this season, although do you really feel like betting against Brady? Rodgers' postseason record is 11-8.
Philip Rivers? He is 5-7 in the playoffs with the San Diego/Los Angeles Chargers and Indianapolis Colts. He played in the AFC championship game after the 2007 season but didn't make it to a Super Bowl.
Russell Wilson? He led Seattle to two Super Bowls, winning after the 2013 season and losing in 2014. His playoff record is 3-5 since 2015.
The Manning brothers? Peyton won a Super Bowl with Indianapolis and another with Denver and lost two more. His postseason record was 14-13. Eli led the New York Giants to Super Bowl wins after the 2007 and 2011 seasons but failed to win another game in four other trips to the playoffs.
And how about Don Shula and Dan Marino, the greatest example of all? The winningest coach of all time and one of the NFL's all-time great quarterbacks took Miami to the Super Bowl after the 1984 season and lost to San Francisco. They never made it to another Super Bowl. Marino was 8-10 in the postseason, 6-7 under Shula.
I'm thinking we've been pretty lucky here.
I'm thinking we've been awfully spoiled.
We could live in Cleveland, which saw its team win its first playoff game since 1994 this season against you-know-who. Or Detroit, where the Lions most recently won a playoff game in 1991, their only postseason win since 1957. Or Tampa, where the Buccaneers made the playoffs — thank you, Mr. Brady — for the first time since 2007. Or even Dallas, where the NFL's highest-valued franchise at $5.7 billion is 4-10 in the postseason since beating the Steelers in the Super Bowl after the 1995 season.
And you think Tomlin and Roethlisberger are underachievers?
Sorry, no.
They aren't failures just because they didn't win quite as much as you would have liked.
