ClutchPoints
There is no question that Mike Tomlin is an exceptional football coach. His 18-year (and counting) run with the Pittsburgh Steelers is highlighted by the team’s victory in Super Bowl 43 and noteworthy for nearly two decades of sustained excellence. Tomlin’s consistency is best exemplified by his record 18 consecutive years without a losing season to start a head coaching career.
Despite his historic greatness as a “leader of men,” which includes reaching the playoffs in 12 of his 18 seasons at the helm, some fans are calling for the Steelers to fire Tomlin. This is largely the result of recent postseason failures, as the team has lost six straight playoff games dating back to 2016.
Ben Roethlisberger, who quarterbacked four of those six playoff losses before retiring after the 2021 season, offered up his thoughts on Pittsburgh’s current situation.
“You have to evolve as a team. You can’t just assume that everybody wants to come play for the Steelers anymore like they used to. People used to want to come play for Pittsburgh because you had a chance every single year to win a Super Bowl,” Roethlisberger said via Steelers Nation.
Of course, the NFL is a quarterback-driven league. And as Bill Belichick quickly discovered following the departure of Tom Brady in 2020, it’s a whole lot harder to win in the league without a franchise passer leading the offense.
Unlike Belichick, however, Tomlin has been able to keep the team afloat, never allowing his Steelers to drop below .500. Since Brady defected to the Buccaneers in 2020, Tomlin’s Steelers have two double-digit win campaigns while the Patriots had three losing seasons with Belichick at the helm.
This isn’t to say Tomlin is without his faults. Perhaps there is something to the idea that his message, after nearly two decades, has grown stale. In 15 years since winning Super Bowl 43, from 2009 to 2023, Tomlin went 151-90-2 with 15 playoff games. An unquestionably impressive record.
However, Mike McCarthy, who isn’t on anyone’s shortlist for the Hall of Fame, led the Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys to a 147-89-2 record with 21 playoff games in 15 seasons from 2007-2022. And he currently finds himself out of a job. Of course, McCarthy does have five losing seasons over his 18-year coaching career, including his 7-10 campaign with the Cowboys in 2024.
It’s become trendy of late to lobby for Tomlin’s ouster from Pittsburgh. Roethlisberger himself has been vocal about the coach’s power behind-the-scenes, painting him as a deeply entrenched decision-maker and intimating that he’s part of the organization’s problems. Still, it’s hard to imagine players eschewing the chance to join a storied franchise led by a legendary head coach who gives the team a chance to reach the postseason every year.
Steelers fans calling for Tomlin to be fired should be stuffed into a time machine and sent back to 2007 when a 35-year-old Tomlin became...
