The Pittsburgh Steelers find themselves 7-5 and in the thick of the ACF playoff race, currently holding the top wild-card seed. However, the process of getting to this point hasn’t been pretty. The Steelers have struggled offensively for most of the season while experiencing some crushing losses the last few weeks to the Cleveland Browns, who were playing with their backup quarterback, as well as the Arizona Cardinals, who came in and beat Pittsburgh by 14 points on its home turf as a 2-10 squad.
The frustration has been mounting regarding head coach Mike Tomlin’s ability to adjust and get this team playing high-caliber football. The Steelers have been squeaking out wins but still look like a fraud rather than a legitimate contender in the eyes of many in the fan base as well as the national media. NBC sportswriter Peter King jumped on 93.7 The Fan’s The Cook & Joe Show this week along with Bob Pompeani to talk about the state of the Steelers following the injury to QB Kenny Pickett and the team’s outlook against the New England Patriots on Thursday night.
Pompeani asked King is he thinks that the Steelers would allow Tomlin to go into 2024 without a contract extension, creating a “lame-duck” scenario with Tomlin only having one year left on his contract after this season.
“Personally, when I look at situations like that, if you’re Mike Tomlin, I think in my opinion, he could care less,” King said on The Cook & Joe Show. “You know why? Because if Mike Tomlin were on the street, he knows, categorically, absolutely he’d have five teams chasing him. Probably every one of them would be offering him more than the Steelers pay him. So I think his opinion of that would be, ‘You know what? If they don’t want me, I’ll just go somewhere else.’ Again, I doubt sincerely that the Steelers would allow him to be a lame duck. I just think my gut feeling, no inside information whatsoever. But my gut feeling is that it won’t come down to that.”
Tomlin has his warts as a coach, notably when dealing with schematics or when it comes to in-game officiating challenges, but he has managed many times to make chicken salad out of chicken you-know-what. The no-losing seasons talk can get redundant after a while, but it is quite a feat that many coaches in the league praise as they all have seasons below .500. Doing so while leading teams like the one in 2019 with Ben Roethlisberger out for the season and QB Duck Hodges starting multiple games as well as last season with Pittsburgh starting the season 2-6 and managing to finish 9-8 speak to Tomlin’s ability to rally the troops, lead men, and win games by any means necessary.
There would be plenty of teams in the league right now that would sign up for winning dirty just because it means they are winning rather than finishing outside of the playoff hunt on a yearly basis. Pittsburgh’s standards are much more than just having a winning record. Rightfully so too as legendary coaches like Chuck Noll and Bill Cowher before Tomlin helped Pittsburgh remain relevant for the better part of four decades, leading to five Lombardi Trophies with Tomlin having added the sixth in the early stages of his tenure with the team.
Pittsburgh hasn’t extended Tomlin’s contract yet, and the question remains if it will do so during the offseason in order to prevent him from walking into 2024 on the final year of his deal. However, it has been reported that the team intends to extend Tomlin ahead of the 2024 season, falling in line with when the organization normally extends its head coach. The reality is that the Steelers have been underwhelming at times this season, but Tomlin has been doing his best job to weather the storms and keep the ship afloat, having parted ways with OC Matt Canada while working to see what Kenny Pickett is made of as the team’s starting quarterback. His track record speaks for itself, and the respect that he’s earned with the Rooneys and the city of Pittsburgh should lead to him getting a contract extension sometime in the coming months following the season.
