The Pittsburgh Steelers and head coach Mike Tomlin agreed to a three-year extension on Monday, keeping the longest tenured head coach in the NFL in Pittsburgh through at least the 2027 season.
If you would have told fans this would be coming in late December after the Steelers dropped three consecutive games, including two to two-win teams to fall to 7-7, fans would be pulling their hair out – myself included, I wrote a piece directly after the New England loss on this very platform saying that this thing had reached its endpoint.
And then the Steelers finished the year on a three-game win streak and somehow got into the playoffs because of course they did. While they loss to the Buffalo Bills, we were all left standing and asking how the hell that team with a tire fire at quarterback and offensive coordinator on ten games.
It’s no secret that Mike Tomlin is polarizing. It’s usually one side of the coin or the other with fans- they either want him fired today or they will die defending his honor. And while Tomlin will walk into the Hall of Fame when the time comes, it’s more than okay to point out his flaws.
The biggest and most glaring blemish for Tomlin is obviously the playoff win drought. The Steelers haven’t won a playoff game since the 2016-17 season when they defeated Alex Smith and the Kansas City Chiefs 18-16 in Arrowhead to advance to the AFC Championship Game where they would lose to the New England Patriots 36-17. Since that season, the Steelers have made the playoffs four times and are 0-4 in those playoff appearances. Of those games, the most disappointing came in 2017 when Pittsburgh lost at home to Blake Bortles and the Jacksonville Jaguars in the divisional round after a first-round bye.
In total, the Steelers have lost their last five playoff games by a combined score of 202-134. That’s an average loss by a score of 40-27.
The other most damning scratch on his face was the Matt Canada & Kenny Pickett experiment.
It was clear that Matt Canada was not the guy for the job at offensive coordinator following the 2022 season, and drafting a fifth-year senior who had one good year in college in the first round was a reach to say the least. Now, the latter certainly lays in the lap of Kevin Colbert, as well as Art Rooney II, but not firing Canada after 2022 and making fans suffer through putrid performance after putrid performance from the offense and the quarterback was nauseating, and honestly may be more of a dark cloud over Tomlin than the playoff drought. Yes, obviously, not winning playoff games for a long stretch of time is enough to make fans impatient. But knowing that you don’t have a shot to do it because of who is calling plays and throwing the ball while absolutely zero changes are being made is next-level misery as a fan.
Now, it’s important to also talk about the good with Tomlin because, for the flaws we just discussed, there is plenty of good that outweighs the bad. I’m not going to say anything about him never having a losing record because that’s been said to death. But look at the last half-decade or so. In 2019 when Ben Roethlisberger was gone for the year and Pittsburgh started off the season 1-4, they were left for dead and no one would have faulted Tomlin if they finished somewhere in the neighborhood of 5-11. Instead, though, they traded for Minkah Fitzpatrick and rode their defense to win seven of their next eight games before the magic carpet finally ran out of juice and the bad quarterback play became too much to overcome. The Steelers finished 8-8, but the fact that they were 8-5 with that offense was astounding – not many other coaches are putting their teams in that type of position.
In 2020, they got off to the best start in franchise history by going 11-0 to start the season, and somehow found their way into the playoffs in 2021 and 2023 with a 9-8 year in between in 2022 after a 2-6 start with Mitch Trubisky and Kenny Pickett under center. Yes, there have been seasons where the Steelers and Tomlin underachieved – not winning a Super Bowl, or even appearing in one with the Killer B’s will forever be a hard pill to swallow. But we can acknowledge that while also being able to say they’ve over-achieved these last four seasons. The 2022 and 2023 teams had zero business winning a combined 19 games with those quarterbacks. Even though those seasons didn’t result in deep playoff runs, I’d say you were naive if you thought Pickett or Rudolph were getting the Steelers to a Super Bowl.
Regardless of your feelings on the extension, we can all agree on one thing – the Steelers need to win, and win now. 10-win seasons no longer mean anything if they end with getting bounced in the wildcard round, and it’s clear that Tomlin, Omar Khan, and Rooney feel the same way. This entire offseason has been filled with “un-Steeler-like moves.” They traded Pickett, they traded Diontae Johnson, they signed Russell Wilson and traded for Justin Fields, they gave Patrick Queen the largest external free agent contract in team history – they know the heat is on.
Credit where it’s due to all parties, they preached that things need to change and they would be open to all approaches, and their actions have backed up their words. But that also needs to translate onto the field and result in a win in postseason play, as well as a deep run into January in the next three seasons.