Not only did Mike Tomlin and the Pittsburgh Steelers provide Brian Flores with a soft landing, but it may be the catalyst to becoming a head coach again, according to a CBS feature piece on Flores’ chances of returning to the ranks of the league’s 32 head coaches. While that future is uncertain, his year with Pittsburgh showed him what the standard looks like.
“Spending a year with Mike Tomlin in Pittsburgh allowed him the opportunity to view everything firsthand from a very successful head coach who is a lot like him from a personality and background standpoint,” a source told CBS Sports’ Jonathan Jones. “Seeing how Mike managed people while also keeping standards and expectations high was big for him. Brian won’t worry about small things that don’t affect wins and losses this time around.”
Filing a lawsuit against the NFL and individual teams after being fired as the Miami Dolphins head coach following the 2021 season, Flores seemed to be frozen out by the league. No team was willing to hire the guy suing the league. That’s when Tomlin stepped in and hired Flores as a linebackers coach/Senior Assistant, a job Tomlin admitted Flores was “overqualified” for. But it kept Flores in the league and made him a relevant name for the 2023 hiring cycle. It was no surprise Flores’ time in Pittsburgh was so short. He was scooped up by the Minnesota Vikings as their defensive coordinator in 2023, a position he holds today.
Jones’ report tracks with comments DL Dean Lowry recently said, spending last season in Minnesota before signing with Pittsburgh in free agency and getting a first-hand look at both men.
“I would say philosophy-wise, you can see he learned a lot from Coach Tomlin here,” Lowry said in June. “A lot of the things coach Tomlin teaches that we go over every single day are things that coach [Flores] brought to Minnesota.”
Though he spent just one season in Pittsburgh, Flores watched how Tomlin worked. What a stable organization with good ownership and mutual respect between players and coaches looked like, failings Flores and the Dolphins showed. It wasn’t an easy or successful season, the first without Ben Roethlisberger and a Steelers team that failed to make the playoffs. But the year showed perseverance and keeping a group together, Pittsburgh responding from a 3-7 record to win six of their last seven and finish 9-8.
Regarded as one of football’s brightest defensive coordinators who can figure out Kyle Shanahan better than anyone else, Flores could return to the 2025 head coaching cycle. Jones’ article points out the potential pitfalls of his ongoing lawsuit and the baggage of his treatment of Tua Tagovailoa, but if he convinces an NFL team he’s a changed man, he could get a second chance. If an owner is looking for a recommendation, Tomlin would be the right guy to call.
