Steelers Now
PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Steelers are embarking on their first coaching search since 2007, as Mike Tomlin stepped down on Tuesday after 19 seasons.
The Steelers will begin the process immediately — and could even begin to request interviews as soon as Wednesday, with team president Art Rooney II leading the way.
“We turn to our search for our next head coach,” Rooney said during his press conference on Wednesday. “Omar [Khan] and I will lead the search and we’ll have others in the organization to help as we go forward.”
It will be the first time that Rooney will make the ultimate decision about hiring a Steelers head coach, but he was involved in the organization when his father, Dan Rooney, hired Bill Cowher in 1992, and was already the team president when Mike Tomlin was hired in 2007.
“I’ve been involved in a number of searches, going back to Coach Cowher,” Rooney said. “Obviously, GM searches. I think when you start the search, I think if I’ve learned anything, it’s to have an open mind. When we had Mike in for his first interview, I certainly wasn’t expecting him to be our next head coach. I think you go through the process and be diligent and hopefully, you come up with the right guy.”
Rooney said the team will move quickly, but there are specific guide rails put in place by the NFL that will slow the process down. The Steelers can’t interview other playoff coaches in person until next week, and coaches that remain in the playoffs after that point won’t be available until after the conference championship games.
If teams want to at least interview the coaches whose teams are having the most success, they have to wait. The Steelers will also have to abide by the Rooney Rule, named for Art’s father, that mandates they interview at least two external minority candidates before making their hire.
“I don’t want to put an exact timeframe on it,” Rooney said. “We’ll get started right away. It will take weeks, at least, I would say. Nowadays, there are number of protocols we have to follow that are sort of designed to slow the process down.”
The Steelers have moved quickly in the past, which each of their last three coaches hired in late January. Tomlin was hired on Jan. 22, 2007, and Cowher was hired on Jan. 21, 1992. But the NFL calendar now goes later into January, and this is the first time the Steelers will be making a hire after having made the playoffs the year before since 1948, when Jock Sutherland retied after an 8-4 season and first-round playoff loss the year before.
This article originally appeared on Steelers Now: Art Rooney II Reveals Timeline for Steelers Hire, Who Will Run Coaching Search
