I have hoped Mr Tomlin would progress and grow as a coach but he hasn't. We do as well as we do because of a team loaded with talent inspite of Mr Tomlin not because of him. As far as the Mr Tomlin VS Coach Cowher argument on records goes regular season is where it ends. Coach Cowher advanced to the AFCCG several times and probably would have won if not for the Cheatriots cheating their ***** off.
OK, to be fair, prior to the 2005 run, Cowher was a bad post-season head coach. His overly-conservative approach (some deemed it "turtle ball") was too similar to another great regular-season coach who failed in the post-season, Marty Schottenheimer, his mentor. Very few teams in the modern era can succeed in the deep post-season with the mentality of a great D, rushing game, but a subpar passing game. D and a rushing game are imperative, but at the highest level, you better be able to pass the ball too. Even some of the teams with the greatest D and rushing games ever, that won a SB STILL had somewhat of a passing game, such as the 1985 Bears and 1986 and 1990 Giants and even the 2000 Ravens. Cowher called too tight a game in some of those post-season losses. As unpopular as it is to say, claiming all of Cowher's failures on the Pats cheating is somewhat delusional. What, did the Pats somehow impact the 1994 loss to the Chargers as well? Please. Cowher - like his mentor Marty - was too one-dimensional in the playoffs.
Cowher finally broke free of his Marty tendencies in 2005, but some of the credit for that goes to Ben. I recall, on more than one occasion, of Ben telling Cowher on the sidelines, in that SB run, "Don't handcuff me" and then hearing Cowher saying to the coaches in the booth, "We can't handcuff Ben." Actually, that entire SB run was very "anti-turtle" as they threw early and often when beating Cinci, Indy and Denver. All that being said, Cowher's warts and foibles were less damaging than Tomlin's, who's lack of accountability and keeping the team focused are far more significant and impactful. In Tomlin's 2008 and 2010 runs, he had a team full of veteran leaders who kept the team focused; after he lost that leadership, we began to see the embarrassing trend of losses to the weakest teams in the league, and 8-8 seasons. Cowher would rarely have that many stinker games. Did he ever lose to bad teams? Sure, but at no where near the frequency of Cook Shades.