The ends of eras, at least when it comes to NFL coaches, come from an accumulation of moments. With good teams especially, there is rarely one singular catalyst. And while I imagine the same will be true about Mike Tomlin and the Steelers—should a decision to part ways at the end of the season be reached—watching what occurred Sunday in rapid succession was about as close as one can come to crafting a director’s cut.
Moments after Steelers fans booed the playing of Styx’s “Renegade”—the fans’ rallying song and cultural benchmark as to what year most of them think it still is, based on hairstyle and general aesthetic—the Steelers gave up a run that broke their home stadium’s record for rushing yards allowed. When taken back to back, both the defiance of stadium traditions and a very public puncturing of a team’s signature defensive identity (against a Bills team decimated on its offensive line, no less, running a very small handful of plays repeatedly) was incredibly jarring. It’s expressing out loud what Steelers fans—once believed to be haughty, spoiled and incapable of giving Tomlin his proper due out of some sycophantic obsession with Bill Cowher—have been saying for a couple of seasons now.
Outside of a few moments, the Steelers have not felt like the Steelers for some time. It may seriously be time to consider whether it’s best to have an Andy Reid–Eagles breakup circa 2012, or, with so many adrift franchises having already fired their head coaches and needing someone with Tomlin’s experience level, to explore the machinations of what would be the eighth head coaching trade since 1997 (which has an incredible success rate, by the way, with Mike Holmgren, Bill Belichick, Jon Gruden and Bruce Arians all at least reaching if not winning Super Bowls, and Sean Payton well on his way to another in Denver). Tomlin is under contract through the 2027 season.
Saying this about Tomlin is different than saying it about a coach that never was; or some individual with low self-awareness who high-stepped into a job unfathomably bigger than he had expected before flaming out spectacularly. Tomlin is an institution. He’s a Super Bowl–winning head coach who got the best out of a generation of Steelers for 19 seasons. There is a delicacy to it. It’s a headline that should not be screamed as much as hesitantly whispered, but only after you make sure there are a few people around willing to back you up.
Despite the continuation of Tomlin’s famous streak without a single season below .500, his Steelers have not reached the divisional round of the playoffs since the 2017 season. Since 2021, the team’s defense has represented the NFL equivalent of a dividing line between actual good defenses and bad ones (Pittsburgh is a combined 15th in EPA per play allowed since 2021 and went into Sunday’s blowout loss to Buffalo 22nd). The Steelers have not had a top-14 offense since that time, vacillating between 23rd, 14th, 23rd again, 20th and 15th this year. And while you could argue that winning so many games despite all of this is evidence of good coaching (as I argued with Dave Canales and the Panthers on this very day), Tomlin’s organizational fingerprints make that a more complicated discussion.
The defense seems to have been lapped schematically by more aggressive coordinators who are legitimately changing the dynamics of an afternoon with combative game plans. The offense, seemingly by virtue of the kind of offense Tomlin typically wants to run, which complements said defense, is devoid of explosiveness. Last season, which featured a quarterback in Russell Wilson who has an outsized penchant for deep balls, was the only one since 2021 in which Pittsburgh was not in the bottom 10 in the NFL in plays of 20-plus yards.
In that same time, the Steelers have one of the worst red zone scoring percentages in the NFL and have faced more third downs than all but seven other teams during that time span. Those are the moments in between that we’re talking about—the sort of concrete underbelly that formulates the underbelly of Sunday’s rock bottom that will be served up to the public.
And, of course, it’s impossible not to mention the obvious defenses of Tomlin. He has won enough to almost permanently take the Steelers out of position to draft a quarterback, which is the position that will serve as his ultimate downfall. Since Ben Roethlisberger’s retirement after the 2021 season, Pittsburgh has been victim to the year-by-year mercenary rental system, though I don’t know how different the team’s fortunes would be if it had landed any of the significant veterans who have changed hands over the past five or so years (Jared Goff, Matthew Stafford, Deshaun Watson, Philip Rivers, etc.). Replacing Tomlin would also be a difficult proposition, although this year’s coaching carousel is especially deep in an area that the Steelers have historically mined for their head coaches—young, aggressive and defensive-minded. Chris Shula, Jeff Hafley, Ejiro Evero and Jesse Minter would all have been considered prime candidates had they been available when Pittsburgh hired Tomlin in 2007.
I expect the public backing of Tomlin, both from his players and the organization, to be swift because he’s earned as much. Such was the case with Reid in Philadelphia and Belichick in New England, and to some degree Pete Carroll when he and the Seahawks parted ways. It didn’t change the fact that the move was necessary. It just changed the way both the team, and everyone on the periphery, should go about it.
Again, quietly at first. And methodically. The Steelers cannot arrive at this decision on a whim lest the organization break up its calling card of coaching success—three names and six Super Bowl titles since 1969. But something tells me the rest of the organization has seen it coming, like the fans who either stopped showing up altogether or, when in attendance, booed the one celebratory moment that is meant to unite Steelers fans everywhere. That isn’t a reaction. That’s a decision.
A statement, some might say.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as It May Finally Be Time for Mike Tomlin and the Steelers to Part Ways.
