Coming off a terrible 24-10 loss to the Arizona Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Steelers’ playoff chances taking a severe hit, for the first time in perhaps Mike Tomlin’s entire tenure, there’s at least public chatter about him being fired. According to one reporter, the prospects of that happening are low. But given that assumption, there’s an urgency for the Steelers’ offense to get out of the basement, a place they’ve been stuck for years.
Appearing on the Rich Eisen Show Thursday, The MMQB’s Albert Breer, formerly of the NFL Network, was asked if there was a chance Tomlin would be shown the door this offseason.
“I don’t think they’d fire Tomlin,” Breer told Eisen. “Let’s start there.”
Now sitting at 7-5, the Steelers’ season hangs in the balance. Still the fifth AFC seed and in control of its destiny, if Pittsburgh takes care of business the rest of the way, it will make the playoffs. But a December collapse would be a gut-punch to a team that may not have had Super Bowl but at least playoff run expectations with a strong defense and offense expected to make a jump under second-year quarterback QB Kenny Pickett. Instead, they’ve regressed, now the 28th-ranked scoring offense in football, two spots shy of where they ended up last season.
It led to the team firing OC Matt Canada, the first time a coordinator had ever been let go midseason. For Breer, that dramatic move signaled a shift in how the organization viewed its normally stable status.
“Part of this is gonna be Mike Tomlin having a good plan to modernize where the Steelers are offensively,” he said.
Breer then cited the team choosing internal or well-connected people to the franchise in Bruce Arians, Todd Haley, and Randy Fichtner. Arians was an internal promotion, Haley had deep roots to the team (his father Dick Haley a longtime front office member) and Fichtner was an internal hire. Canada was also a promotion one year after being hired as the team’s quarterbacks coach.
It makes Tomlin’s next hire for offensive coordinator a critical one. Pittsburgh’s window for its defensive stars won’t remain open forever and to date, Cam Heyward and T.J. Watt have combined to win one playoff game in which they’ve appeared. The Steelers have missed the playoffs in two of their last four seasons and haven’t won a postseason game since 2016, the team’s longest drought since the merger. Much of that has to do with Pittsburgh’s offense, though the defense has also wilted come mid-January.
“I think a big part of where they’re going is, ‘Ok we need a plan for modernizing the offense and we need a plan for developing the quarterback.’ Because if you look at the roster, Rich, they’ve got a lot of good things going on in that roster,” Breer said.
The key to their success, Pickett, was the player who hasn’t developed this year. Now, he’s out at least Thursday night’s game against the New England Patriots due to a high ankle sprain and will likely miss at least two games. Per Tomlin, Pickett is expected to play before the regular season ends. Without him taking steps forward, or the team finding a quarterback who will, the offense has little chance to be anything more than below average.
Beyond speculation and some national media chatter, there’s no indication Tomlin will be fired even if the Steelers’ season goes south. But if it does, his seat should at least become warm. As consistently as he’s led the franchise, Pittsburgh’s bar is higher than just avoiding a losing record. Winning the Super Bowl every year is unrealistic but winning a playoff game should be the expectation, one that hasn’t been met for too long.
