Though Todd Haley hasn’t been with the Pittsburgh Steelers in years, he’s still keeping close tabs on his former team. And rooting for them along the way. Following the Steelers’ big 34-11 win Saturday over the Cincinnati Bengals, a must-have game that snapped an ugly three-game losing streak, Haley hopped on Twitter to sing Mike Tomlin’s praises.
“Great job by Coach Tomlin and the @steelers blocking out the outside noise! Huge win!” his tweet read, including a Merry_Christmas hashtag at the end.
The noise was as loud as ever in Pittsburgh. Primarily, it came from WR George Pickens and his low effort on a goal line block against the Indianapolis Colts followed up by his rationale that he didn’t want to risk injuring himself. The chatter got so loud Mike Tomlin held a post-practice press conference, a rarity, to try to clear the air. At times, he was critical of Pickens for his poor media savvy. In other ways, he expressed a commitment to developing Pickens as a player and a person while ultimately acknowledging Pickens, despite calls for him to be benched, would play against the Cincinnati Bengals.
Tomlin’s move paid off on the field. Pickens had a career day in the win, finishing with four receptions for 195 yards and two touchdowns. He averaged nearly 50 yards per catch with receptions of 44, 66, and 86 yards, the latter catch going for a touchdown on the Steelers’ first play of the game.
But the noise wasn’t just about Pickens even if it did occupy most of the newsfeed. For the first time in his 17-year coaching tenure, there was a realistic conversation about Tomlin’s future beyond just the fringes of Internet talk. Maybe that was just noise that never punctured the building and Art Rooney II’s desk but it became so loud that it was impossible to ignore.
Now, one win over the Bengals doesn’t permanently change the course of the Steelers’ season or Tomlin’s handling of it. Pittsburgh still is just one game above .500 with playoff odds currently hovering around 20 percent. But he showed, as Rex Ryan noted Sunday morning, there’s still control over the locker room and he can rally the team to its best win of the season (though much of it was also about this team flatly executing and correcting mistakes they made before).
Like it or not, Tomlin is almost certain to return to the Steelers’ sideline in 2024 and likely beyond. His competitive longevity is what his peers admire the most about him. In a world where coaches typically bounce place to place, including the likes of Haley, Tomlin is the second longest-tenured head coach with one team in the NFL. Soon enough, once Bill Belichick’s future is determined, he’ll jump into that top spot.
