Even before his first training camp as a head coach began rolling toward its full momentum, Mike Tomlin this week jolted both the Steelers and the media with the near playful way he commands the language.

"We're thoughtfully non-rhythmic," he said.

Wait.

You're what?

Matt Freed, Post-Gazette Mike Tomlin -- Getting into the rhythm, er, non-rhythm of camp in Latrobe. Click photo for larger image.

I don't know how that's going to play in the locker room Mike, but in my notepad it had an 80 percent chance of surfacing as something like "thankfully non-arthritic," which, from the generic football circumstance, makes just as much sense.

To me.

But this is no ordinary coach, particularly in the new-media age where all you need is a fresh copy of the Abridged Glossary of Coachspeak to get you through just about any situation short of dog fighting. The new Steelers coach is, by contrast, a cutured pearl. A reader. A writer. With his wit, a midnight striker.

Just the other day, Tomlin referred to the NFL as the Ultimate Parity League, which, even when it's capitalized, wouldn't bring out the best of John Facenda's iconic baritone. It is, however, the truth.

The post-modern NFL is sports's most advanced paragon of competitive balance. No one's coaching Penn State against Temple in this league. This is 32 teams with 45 active players whose composite weights, heights, 40 times, vertical leaps, appetites and attention spans all fall within a range no greater than a figurative thumbnail. (Formerly known as "a fine line in this business.")

That's what puts a premium on coaching, and, for the coming NFL season, what presents the very polished framework of serious opportunity for someone with Mike Tomlin's skill sets.

Without forming a defensible position on what or when might have been the golden age of NFL coaching, let me just posit that this probably isn't it. Tomlin arrives in this fraternity at a time when it is much farther from distinguished academic achievement than it is from double secret probation.

Joe Gibbs, Jon Gruden, Tom Coughlin, Jack Del Rio, John Fox and Romeo Crennel were on the hair trigger ejector seat before mini-camp let out -- that's 19 percent of the fraternity -- and a broader look at the accomplishments of the 32 men at the top of their profession isn't unduly flattering.

Five coaches including Tomlin -- 16 percent of the league -- have never won a game.

Thirteen coaches -- 41 percent of the league -- have won 10 or fewer.

The median career win total for the 32 current NFL coaches is 35. For the moment, four 9-7 seasons would put you in the top half of this either unremarkable if partially untested class.

With the departures of Bill Cowher and Bill Parcells, only three of the top 20 all-time winningest coaches are active, Mike Shanahan, Mike Holmgren and Gibbs, whose active status hangs in the stunning imbalance between his Hall of Fame original Redskins tenure and the ineffectual Dan Snyder-produced model.

Seven coaches in the game's history, including Chuck Noll, won more than 200 games. Only six active coaches have won half that many.

The whole coaching climate at the top of the NFL organizational charts is -- what's the right term? -- thoughtfully non-rhythmic.

Gibbs needs nine victories to move into the top 10. Problem is, that means non-NASCAR victories.

Holmgren needs 12 to pass Cowher, Gibbs, Bud Grant and Chuck Knox on his way to the top 10.

Shanahan needs 11 to make it to 150.

Coughlin needs a bloody miracle to see Halloween.

Tomlin, who needs one victory to reach one victory, clearly has a very inviting landscape. His thoughtfully non-rhythmic remark was crafted to explain that camp schedule is designed to make players uncomfortable and unable to anticipate any pattern to the tasks, the better to sharpen their cognition and adaptability. Were I the official vocabulary slinger, it would be purposefully arrhythmic, but Tomlin's "thoughtully non-rhythmic" is probably better in that it prevents arrhythmia.

Or something.

With only cursory evidence, I doubt that there are many coaches among the current 32 who are very much like Mike Tomlin. While Minnesota's Brad Childress, for example, played wide receiver briefly at Illinois, Tomlin is the only NFL head coach whose extensive playing experience was chiefly as a wideout. In the brethren, there are 10 old quarterbacks, six former defensive backs, and five former tight ends, but only Tomlin's first extended view of the game came from the wide angle.

He's not from central casting. He's a split end who hung out at the library.

It might not translate to even 9-7, but for now, it's all so thankfully non-arthritic.