Former Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Chuck Noll has the eighth-most wins in NFL history with 193. Current Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin isn’t too far behind him with 173 and has plenty of time to catch him. He just signed a three-year contract extension that keeps him in Pittsburgh through 2027.
Tomlin only has to average just over five wins per season over the next four years to pass Noll as the winningest head coach in team history. Given Noll’s legacy, that would be quite a feat, and not one that anyone will come close to breaking soon. Not many coaches stay in one place for decades at a time.
But for Tomlin, for the Steelers—for the fans—that doesn’t matter, Ray Fittipaldo says. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t come with some more hardware. Chuck Noll didn’t have a non-losing season streak, sure, but he has four Lombardis.
“I think that’s coming”, Fittipaldo said on 93.7 The Fan yesterday about Tomlin becoming the winningest coach in team history. “No one who follows the Steelers or lives in Pittsburgh thinks that means anything. I think it’s all about Super Bowl victories. Right now, he’s tied with Bill Cowher with one. Even if he gets to Chuck Noll’s career wins total, it’s not gonna mean anything unless he wins another Super Bowl”.
Tomlin became the youngest head coach in NFL history to win a Super Bowl back in 2008. The Steelers had only hired him the previous season, just two years removed from winning the Super Bowl with Bill Cowher. Cowher spent 15 years as the Steelers’ head coach and finally won in his 13th season. But only Chuck Noll managed to win more than one.
Going into his 18th season, Tomlin has now spent 15 years as the Steelers’ head coach without winning a Super Bowl. That is the entire length of Cowher’s tenure here. And the Steelers haven’t even come close in a long time. Their last conference finals appearance was in 2016, their last Super Bowl appearance in 2010.
“Mike Tomlin is certainly on a path to the Hall of Fame, but to me he’s quite a ways away from being in Chuck Noll territory”, Fittipaldo insisted. “That guy won four Super Bowls, had a ton of playoff success when he was the head coach”.
Of course, Noll coached in a very different era in the 1970s and 80s than Tomlin faces now. One can make arguments for and against for which is more difficult. There are more teams to compete against today—yet also more playoff spots. There is free agency today, meaning more roster turnover, and more generalized information. It’s not as easy to hide information on prospects these days, let’s say.
Chuck Noll remains the only head coach other than Bill Belichick with at least four Super Bowl trophies. Andy Reid just joined Joe Gibbs and Bill Walsh with three, but nobody else has more than two. If Tomlin should win another, he will be the 15th head coach in NFL history to win two. And the Steelers would be the fourth franchise to have multiple head coaches with multiple Super Bowls. Nobody will care, though, if they have multiple head coaches with 193 career wins.
