Behind the Steel Curtain
This week: the Steelers aren’t operating like a team with championship aspirations, PLUS, we review Calvin Austin III’s 2024 season.
At the end of last season, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin promised that changes would be coming to Pittsburgh. Like much of the fanbase, Read & React met that promise with some well-earned skepticism. Certainly, changes would be made, but it felt naive to believe they would go beyond the surface level. After all, Tomlin is now the longest tenured coach in all of North American professional sports. How likely was he to change his stripes?
We theorized in the linked column above that the Steelers would not be bringing back much of their free agent class. With the benefit of time and hindsight, we now know that to be true.
Since that column, the Steelers have also traded for DK Metcalf, traded away George Pickens, and — with apologies to Mason Rudolph — have failed to sign a starting quarterback. A potential Aaron Rodgers signing still looms for the organization, but until Rodgers signs an official contract, we cannot count on him for the upcoming season.
This week, Read & React asks the question: Are the Steelers quiet quitting on the 2025 season? Plus, can Calvin Austin III step up to be the Steelers' WR2? We examine with the latest in our “2024 In Review” series.
RP: The period between the NFL Draft and the opening of training camp is the most trying stretch of the NFL calendar. With no games to be played for months, fans are left to stew in the vibes their team’s offseason has created. For lucky fanbases, there’s an optimistic feeling that the new additions to the roster and coaching staff will vault them into title contention. For the less fortunate, pessimism and dread can take hold.
There is no universal consensus amongst a fanbase, of course, but since the Steelers’ maddening three-point loss to the Jaguars in the 2017 playoffs, no debate has been more prevalent in Steelers Nation than Tomlin’s continued employment. Whether you’re ready to run Tomlin out of town or believe he’s a master motivator who’s making the most out of some flawed rosters, chances are your mind on the subject is already made up.
While I’m not trying to drag us into another Tomlin debate, it’s hard to discuss the overall direction of the organization without acknowledging Tomlin’s role in it. Since that fateful playoff loss in 2017, the Steelers have struggled to rise above the NFL’s mid-tier of contenders, losing in the Wild Card round in each of the four playoff appearances they’ve made since.
The Steelers have changed general managers during that time, and while Tomlin and Kevin Colbert had a fairly collaborative partnership, there’s little question that his influence on roster decisions has only grown under Omar Khan.
But ultimately, the Steelers' ability to win playoff games again, let...
