Tim Benz: ESPN just created the word ‘Tomlining,’ but the definition is up for debate
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On Monday morning, following the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 17-10 win over the Baltimore Ravens, ESPN’s Mike Greenberg invented a new word: “Tomlining.”
And I think he meant it as a compliment.
Yes, the “Get Up!” host turned the Steelers coach into a verb. He did so during a segment breaking down the Steelers latest offenseless (since we are making up words) victory. Former Jets and Bills coach Rex Ryan began the exchange by crediting the Steelers for somehow being atop the AFC North in spite of their hideous offensive output thus far in 2023.
Ryan: “They are 3-2. They’re in first, and they’ve been outscored by 31 points. And they are 3-2.”
Greenberg: “That’s just Mike Tomlin. He’s just Tomlining.”
Ex-NFL quarterback Dan Orlovsky: “Their offense is a go route to George Pickens, or Kenny Pickett to the left.”
Greenberg: “And somehow — win. We should make that into a verb. They are Tomlining all the way, right now, to the top of that division.”
Or maybe, and hear me out on this Greeny, maybe the other three teams in the North are Tomlining their way out of first place.
That would be my interpretation of the word. But I’m getting the impression Greenberg used the phrase in a laudatory manner. I get the sense Greenberg’s chosen meaning of Tomlining is a one-word way to embody the national media’s usually positive view of the Steelers head coach.
It feels like if Greenberg were to petition to get the word “Tomlining” into Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, he’d suggest that it read something like this:
Tomlining (transitive verb): 1. To win, in American football, despite difficult circumstances within a game or season.
> Synonym phrases: Numerous sports media cliches for avoiding a total team meltdown, eg. “gutting it out,” “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps,” “never losing the room,” “always pointing the ship in the right direction,” “never letting the car swerve off the road,” etc.
> Use in a sentence: “The Steelers are somehow Tomlining their way to playoff contention in December with Duck Hodges and Mason Rudolph at quarterback.”
> Origin: Bristol, Ct./New York, N.Y., circa 2023
I’d cosign on that. But I’d also demand that a second “Tomlining” definition be added.
2. To earn significant praise, in American football, for consistently average to slightly above-
> Synonym phrases: “underachieving despite rosters perceived to be playoff worthy in August,” “failing to win a playoff game 10 of the last 12 years and six in a row,” “frustrating, inconsistent results largely due to a rudderless offensive approach”
> Use in a sentence: “It looks like the Steelers are Tomlining their way through 2023 en route to 9-8 again, but no one in the national media will ever criticize the head coach because he’s never had a losing season.”
> Origin: Yinzer, circa 2017
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If you go to dictionary.com, here are the exact criteria for getting a word into the dictionary:
1. It’s a word that’s used by a lot of people.
2. It’s used by those people in largely the same way.
3. It’s likely to stick around.
4. And it’s useful for a general audience.
Well, to the first point, even though Greenberg may have just brought “Tomlining” into the mainstream, a lot of people have been using that term for a while. With most of them leaning toward my preferred interpretation. Just search X and you’ll see “Tomlining” used in plenty of ways.
Regarding the third and fourth criteria, Steelers owner Art Rooney II will probably let Tomlin have the job for life, so I bet the word will “stick around” for a while. And I do think the word “Tomlining” is incredibly useful for the Steelers fan base. In fact, I plan to start using it regularly in this column.
Scratch that. Not “regularly.” Daily.
It’s that second requirement that gets sticky, since I think there is a massive gap between how national media members would use the word “Tomlining” and how frustrated Steelers fans in Pittsburgh would use it.
Not to mention that the popular slang-defining website UrbanDictionary already has an entry for “tomlining.” Although, they go with a lowercase “t,” and it has nothing to do with results on the field. Rather it is a much more specific jab at Tomlin’s wandering toward the field as Jacoby Jones was running for a touchdown in Baltimore a few years ago.
They use different versions of “tomlining” in a sentence:
• “One of my co-workers tomlined me by bad mouthing me to my boss just when I was about to get promoted.”
• “Kanye West tried to tomlin Taylor Swift at the Grammys.”
So now we have three versions of “Tomlining” out there with three separate definitions. So, I don’t like Greenberg’s chances of getting Tomlining into the dictionary.
At least not in the way he appears to have meant it.