It feels like it’s been a solid decade or more since a Pittsburgh Steelers season came and went without a high sense of drama. The 2023 season was certainly no different, particularly in the second half of the year, from the firing of offensive coordinator Matt Canada to the quarterback carousel, and finally the ongoing rumors surrounding the future of head coach Mike Tomlin.
While it seems that most have given up on the idea that the front office will part ways with him the way the New England Patriots just did with Bill Belichick and the Seattle Seahawks likewise with Pete Carroll, Tomlin’s detractors now cling to the hope that he might choose to walk away on his own and “take some time off”.
I wouldn’t count on that happening. And those on the inside certainly don’t sense anything amiss, including those who have been on other teams when there actually was smoke before the fire, like former Jacksonville Jaguars ILB Myles Jack.
“I’ve been on teams where it’s a real hot seat, and it is pretty much known that that person that’s there today ain’t going to be there next season”, he said recently, via Brooke Pryor of ESPN. “In my opinion, I would think [Tomlin’s current seat] was freezing, as cold as outside”.
Jack should know. He watched three different head coaches get fired during his six-year tenure in Jacksonville. Gus Bradley was his coach as a rookie in 2016 before he was fired 12 games into his fourth season on the job. He was replaced by Doug Marrone, who would drop the “interim” part of his head coaching title in 2017, only to be fired after the 2020 season.
He was replaced by Urban Meyer in 2021, and an infamous tenure that was. The decorated college coach failed miserably, going 2-11, but his ultimate undoing was a growing list of controversies that involved indecent behavior in a bar and kicking one of his own players.
Suffice it to say that Jack probably has a pretty good sense for when things aren’t going to work out. That had often been accompanied with a lot of losing, and well, we can’t deny the stark reality that Tomlin is preparing for a playoff game right now. Carroll and Belichick were not.
The Steelers ultimately finished the year 10-7, which is right about where most expected them to finish at the start of the season. They took a bit of a roundabout way of getting there, finishing with a three-game losing streak matched by a three-game winning streak, but it all got them to the same place in the end.
As for the odds of Tomlin stepping away from the game, I would caution those clinging to that theory who might want to read into his interactions with the media. I’m sure most coaches are tired of answering questions, but he is energized by the game itself.
