Pittsburgh Steelers fans have a high bar set for championship-level play. When that bar isn’t met at least once per decade, the fan base starts to get a little restless. Spend five minutes in the comment section of any of our posts about Mike Tomlin on this website, and you will see the volume of fans who are fed up with the lack of recent playoff success. People have wanted Tomlin out of town for years.
Unsportsmanlike host Evan Cohen expressed how he gets ridicule for his love of Mike Tomlin. Ryan Clark made sure to set the record straight.
“You do know the only people that don’t like Mike Tomlin are people in Pittsburgh, right?” Clark said via ESPN’s Unsportsmanlike this morning. “There’s no way you should be getting ridiculed. Everybody else in the entire world wants Mike Tomlin to coach their football team. There’s no one that is turning Mike Tomlin down to be their head coach if they have a vacancy.”
For any fans who have gotten caught up in a hearty debate about Tomlin in Pittsburgh, you have all seen this point get made. But it obviously means a little more coming from a former player and one of the most respected NFL TV personalities in the business.
There is no denying that Tomlin hasn’t gotten a playoff win since the 2016 season when they lost in the AFC Championship Game to the New England Patriots. There have been plenty of disappointments since then. And the argument of his 17 consecutive non-losing seasons has lost its luster without playoff success attached.
It is still important to look at each season in isolation to look at the talent on the roster, the various personalities he has had to juggle, and never losing the locker room for even one second. I think back to 2019 when Roethlisberger was injured early in the season and Tomlin kept the team competitive until the very end. I also think back to last season when they went on a three-game losing streak in December and the media narratives spiraled out of control. The messaging was consistent coming from player interviews in the locker room, and the Steelers turned it around with a winning streak to qualify for the playoffs. Those things matter.
The 2024 season has been a good one for Tomlin. Countless projection models and analysts counted the Steelers out and had them with somewhere from six to eight wins for the season. They are already at 6-2 with nine games left to play. He made a heck of a decision going “lone ranger” and reinstating Russell Wilson as the starter after Justin Fields had a 4-2 record, and it paid off.
Why, in the words of Ryan Clark, do Pittsburgh fans want Tomlin gone?
“Because Pittsburgh is spoiled, right?” Clark said. “When you win six championships and when you feel like you should consistently be competing for the AFC Championship, you should always have an opportunity to win the Lombardi, getting to the playoffs isn’t enough. They actually forget that Bill Cowher was there for 14 years before he won it. They’re going to find any way or any narrative to create that ‘Oh Tomlin won with Coach Cowher’s players.’ That’s not how it works.
“Because he’s remained ultimately consistent, he’s never been at the top of the draft to go get that other quarterback, so you try it with the Kenny Picketts.”
How many franchises have had their entire trajectories turned around by a quarterback? C.J. Stroud did it for the Houston Texans last year, and Jayden Daniels is doing it for the Washington Commanders this year. Meanwhile, Tomlin and his system in Pittsburgh made Fields—a castoff QB from the Chicago Bears—look capable of competing into the playoffs. And now he’s making Wilson look even better after almost everybody wrote him off as washed up following his stint with the Denver Broncos.
Like it or not, Tomlin is with the team through the 2027 season at the very least given his recent extension. Hopefully some of the doubters are starting to realize how good of a coach he is, though many opinions won’t change until he wins a playoff game or even until he wins another Super Bowl. I don’t think any of that is off the table this year.
