Guest Blog: The Standard is The Standard? by Justin Brumbaugh

Catch·phrase
/kaCH,fräz/
Noun

A well-known sentence or phrase, typically one that is associated with a particular famous person.

Is there anything better than a good catchphrase? Who can forget the late great Chris Farley as Matt Foley, wearing a three-sizes too small suit, belting out his infamous "Living in a van...down by the river" line. For those maybe not versed in the greatness that was SNL in the mid 90's, a more recognizable (sadly) example is the globally recognizable "GIT'R DONE" made famous by Larry the Cable Guy.

While in the entertainment business a catchphrase is an easy way to gain notoriety, and often make ridiculous amounts of money (the cable guy has a net worth of over 55 million dollars). Catchphrases amongst the coaching fraternity are not nearly as common. Some of you will argue that the Jim Mora famous "playoffs" rant and Denny Green's "they are who we thought they were", these were nothing more than famous speeches. They weren't repeated time and time again, but for the last couple years there has been a recurring word cluster popping up in almost every Mike Tomlin press conference.
"The standard is the standard"

Brilliant! The standard is the standard, it's short, its sweet, and let's face it, when Tomlin says it, it just sounds cool. I can't remember the first time I heard it, but much like "get'er done" it starts to lose it's meaning after a while, and then we begin to wonder, what did it mean in the first place?

"The standard is the standard" What a way to do business, if you are a leader in any way, you should emphasize this daily, its a great way to remind your subordinates know what is expected of them. However it really becomes empty and vague when your subordinates were never really sure of what the standard was in the first place.

This to me is one of the biggest problems with this latest group of Steelers, there seems to be no standard.

We can all remember those Sunday afternoons watching the Steelers, the bus or fast Willie would break off a nice run, crowd would be going nuts, but then it happened. At the top of the screen that ill fated yellow "FLAG" logo would appear. Everyone knew what was coming, someone was about to get a shower compliments of Coach Cowher, the amount of rage that man exerted on something as trivial as a holding call was incredible, but one thing was for sure, every man on that team knew the "standard". They also knew that if the standard was not met, there would be hell to pay. Now fast forward to the present Steelers regime, seeing that FLAG logo doesn't quite have the same punch it once did, penalties are often met with a quick conversation and a pat on the back of the helmet.

Now this is where the conversation gets fun, we're about to venture into the wonderful world of old vs new, young vs old, and Steelers fan vs yinzer. (there's a difference but that's another column for another day) Many people would say that Tomlin's way is the new way of doing things, and Cowher's methods are a little more the old school approach to things. Many an argument has and will be waged on this exact topic, and there isn't a right or wrong answer. One could look to statistics, (go ahead Google them, I'll wait) you'll see that that turnovers and penalties have gone up under Tomlin. Can you pin this directly on Mike? No. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to try my damndest.

Think back to a time when you had a boss who was a dick, he may have been a nice guy when things were going good, but that one time you were late filing your tps reports all hell came down upon you. The Hell of it is, you didn't mean to do it, but because he held you accountable for your actions, and did it in a manner that ensured ,if even subliminally, you never want to mess up again. You understand what the standard is and you will execute to that standard.

That is what these Steelers are, in my opinion, lacking. There is no personal accountability, both on and off the field, whether it's a star received dropping passes on the field or a star linebacker showing up overweight, there is no reason for that player to be worried, I don't think previous regimes had this problem. I hope that sometime, hopefully in the near future, neither will this one.

A catch phrase can be an awesome thing, love him or hate him, you will never forget who Larry the Cable guy is, because he is what he promotes. Mike Tomlin has a chance to etch his own phrase into history, but that won't happen till the standard he preaches week after week, in fact becomes the standard his team is held to.