Steelers Now
In May, ESPN analyst and former Pittsburgh Steelers free safety Ryan Clark took a surprisingly critical stance regarding Mike Tomlin’s future in Pittsburgh, suggesting that the longtime head coach’s message may no longer be resonating within the organization.
“As great a coach as he is, and he’s a first-ballot Hall of Famer, I believe his voice has run stale in Pittsburgh,” Clark said during a segment on First Take.
Ryan Clark clarified his comments in a recent interview on the Green Light with Chris Long podcast*,* which is a production of Yote House Media.
Clark still thinks Tomlin is an elite coach, but he needs his Andy Reid run somewhere. Clark even said Tomlin has “God talent” when it comes to coaching.
“You know how you say Aaron [Rodgers] has God talent. I think Coach Tomlin does too,” Clark told Long. “He can lay something out that is so complex and make it so simple. I never left the game and said, ‘That team beat us in a way that coach Tomlin didn’t tell us was possible.’ Or, ‘We did everything he said would lead to a win, but we still lost’… He has this incredible ability to allow you to be yourself within the team. And this is just honest, [Antonio Brown] was not a good teammate, but he worked his butt off individually. Coach Tomlin was able to say, okay, I’m going to box that and allow that to affect the team, but I won’t let the negativity affect the team on the field.”
Tomlin is entering his 19th season as the Steelers’ head coach, making him the longest-tenured coach in the NFL. Over nearly two decades, he has built an impressive résumé: two Super Bowl appearances, one championship, and, most notably, no losing seasons.
However, despite his regular-season consistency, postseason success has largely eluded Pittsburgh in recent years. The Steelers have not won a playoff game since the 2016–17 season, when they defeated the Kansas City Chiefs in the Divisional Round. Since then, the pattern has become frustratingly familiar—squeaking into the postseason with a record just above .500, only to get blown out in the Wild Card round by more dominant teams like Buffalo or Kansas City.
While Tomlin deserves credit for keeping the Steelers competitive in the post–Ben Roethlisberger era, his inability to elevate the team beyond mediocrity in the playoffs has prompted some, like Clark, to question whether maintaining the status quo is worth it.
Clark said in June that Rodgers and Tomlin have both underachieved in their careers.
“We were the last two people to walk off the field after the Super Bowl in 2010, 2011. If you had just told me (Tomlin) never (got) back to another one by this point, I’d have thought you were out of your mind. And I also said that he still has it, I just think he needs his Andy Reid run somewhere.”
Joe Fitzgerald contributed reporting for this story.
This article originally appeared on Steelers Now:...
