PALM BEACH, Fla. -- A veteran network television executive, attending another in a long line of annual NFL meetings for him, strolled past a table near the hotel pool, where two young head coaches chatted.

He stopped after a stretch, nodded his head toward the coaches and said, "They look like they're 12 years old."

Steelers coach Mike Tomlin, 35, and Raiders coach Lane Kiffin, almost 33, were two of the six youngest men to make their NFL head-coaching debuts since the league merged in 1970.

They have that in common, and, with little history between them, it might be what brought them together Wednesday afternoon for a few hours by the pool after the meetings wrapped up. It might be the only thing they have in common.

Kiffin, hired last year, has been asked to resign by Oakland owner Al Davis after the Raiders finished 4-12 in his first season. Tomlin already has a division championship after one season and the unequivocal support of his owners.

"I thought he did very, very well," said Steelers chairman Dan Rooney, whose two previous hires for the position lasted 33 years between them. "I thought he did a great job. I think he learned things that he had to learn.

"He came in with a good team that won the Super Bowl two years before. There was player unrest, and you were bound to get a different feel for a different coach. But he handled it, he handled it well, he handled the Alan Faneca thing. It was not an easy thing."

Don't succeed a legend, the maxim holds. Become the second coach after the legend leaves. The successors to John Wooden, Bear Bryant, Bobby Knight and Don Shula, among others, learned the lesson too late. Bill Cowher defied it with the Steelers, and Tomlin started well in his attempt to follow.

"People don't understand how difficult that is," Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy said Wednesday morning. "It's not hard to come in when a team hasn't had success, but to follow a guy who has done as well as Bill did and with so many guys still loyal to him!

"That's a tough situation; you never want to follow the real successful guy right away, other than the fact you're going to have some pretty good players there, which he did."

Land mines were everywhere. Faneca, a seven-time Pro Bowl player and a captain of the offense, was miserable because of his contract status. Joey Porter, a captain of the defense, was released. Many of their teammates were furious because of those two and the fact neither Russ Grimm nor Ken Whisenhunt was hired to replace Cowher.

Tomlin entered with new rules, new approaches and backed away from none of the player unrest.

"It's easy to say we're going to do this, and this is the way we're going to do it, when guys haven't been successful," Dungy said. "Now all of a sudden they say, 'Hey coach, we won for 15 years doing it this way, why do we need to do it your way?' But Mike was able to get through all that and get the guys understanding him. I thought Mike did a great job. He had a great year."

Said Detroit Lions coach Rod Marinelli, who worked with Tomlin at Tampa Bay, "He did an 'A' job, and he'll get better and better, there's no doubt in my mind. He's a special guy now. No doubt in my mind he's going to be one of the best coaches in this league for years."

Tomlin, for the most part, shrugs off such praise from his colleagues and bosses. He does not care about last season -- he even pooh-poohed the NFL's admission that Jacksonville linemen overtly held on a key play that led to the Jaguars' victory against the Steelers in their January playoff game. He dismissed a question the other day when a reporter asked him if he put his stamp on the team in his first season as coach.

"You'd have to ask somebody else that. I'm not here to put my stamp on anything. I'm here to win, to lead the Steelers, that's my focus. I'll leave that up to you guys to determine what my stamp is."

Another question came quickly: Did he earn the respect of his players?

"I don't worry about that. Every job I've ever gotten people have asked me that question because I was a young guy. I coach, they play. Mutual respect is, of course, part of it. I've never really focused on that. I think if you have the tools that can help those guys be better players, it's a non-issue."

Tomlin enters his second year on the job with a different set of potential land mines than he did as a rookie head coach. The Cleveland Browns, who tied the Steelers' 10-6 regular-season record, have made vast improvements in the offseason, while the Steelers lost Faneca, starting linebacker Clark Haggans and No. 4 receiver Cedrick Wilson. The schedule is a killer that even Rooney noted.

"The schedule is awful tough, but you can't talk about that, you have to play it," Rooney said. "We'll see how he handles that. I have confidence in him."

Tomlin does not lack any confidence in himself, either.

"I pride myself in being comfortable. I'm not going to be uncomfortable," Tomlin said. "Not being flippant or funny, but I've got a great deal of respect for the Rooneys, that they knew what they were doing, that they know what they're looking for and that they selected me to be their head coach. I found comfort in that, and so it was never a period of discomfort for me."

Comfortable, perhaps, but he said he does not assume anything about his job or the longevity that went with it for Cowher and Chuck Noll.

"I don't look for security. If I was looking for security, I'd be a professor or something, some tenured position. I feel comfortable because I know what lies ahead. This is the second lap around the track for me, if you will. That being said, every lap is different. I expect it to be, and we've got to roll our sleeves up and get back to work.

"Man, I'm living a dream. Every day I come to work it's an awesome thing. I walk past five Lombardis to my right every morning when I walk to my office. It's fun, it's awesome, it's challenging, it's tough, it's all those things, but it's what you dream about doing.

"I love it."