While Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin got his start as a coach on the defensive side of the ball, if he was in charge of a program, he’d look to the offensive side of the ball to find a head coach. During an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show, former NFL defensive end and current CBS analyst J.J. Watt said that he asked Tomlin during the production meeting ahead of the Steelers-Chiefs Christmas Day game what type of head coach he would hire, and Tomlin threw him a bit of a curveball.
“It’s one of the things that I asked Mike Tomlin in our production meeting before our Christmas game was, if you were hiring a head coach in today’s atmosphere, would you [go] offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, CEO type?” said Watt, who was part of the Netflix broadcast for the Chiefs-Steelers game. “He was like, ”In today’s world, has to be an offensive mind. Has to be a guy that’s an offensive mind because the quarterback’s the most [important].’ So it was really, that was a really interesting take from a notoriously defensive guy.”
It’s interesting to hear from Tomlin, who’s had a lot of success as a defensive-minded head coach, but it goes to show that he recognizes the NFL’s changing landscape. Teams that can’t develop a quarterback won’t have success in the league, and the Steelers saw that during their two seasons with Kenny Pickett. That resulted in just one playoff appearance, which came thanks to Mason Rudolph leading the Steelers to three straight wins at the end of last season.
It also could explain why Pittsburgh hired Arthur Smith as its offensive coordinator last February. He got his start on offense and served as a head coach, so having that experience as a head coach could’ve been attractive to the Steelers. He also had success as the offensive coordinator in Tennessee while helping develop QB Ryan Tannehill, who resurrected his career with the Titans.
Obviously, Tomlin isn’t advocating for himself to be replaced by an offensive mind and he’s not going anywhere, with his recent contract extension locking him up through 2027. But if Tomlin was in a front office position or consulted on head-coaching hires, he’d look to the offensive side of the ball, which isn’t an answer that I think many would have expected.
But offensive head coaches are having more success around the league, with the last five Super Bowls featuring two teams that were led by a head coach with an offensive background. The Steelers and Tomlin will look to break that trend this season, but there’s no doubt that offensive coaches have had more recent success, and Tomlin recognizes their importance in team development.
