The Pittsburgh Steelers are an organization built on Super Bowl victories, but they haven’t come close to living up to that standard lately. With eight straight seasons without a playoff win, the Steelers haven’t come close to meeting their goals, and Mike Tomlin acknowledged as such at his end-of-season press conference today. Tomlin said the Steelers are always adapting, but they need to continue to change to get where they want to be.
“I have a cliche that the guys oftentimes throw back at me in jest but it’s true. Two is a pattern. And I say that because there’s an expiration date on adjusting, adapting. And so I use that phrase to reflect urgency, to reflect how quickly it is that we need to adapt and adjust and move. And so although as you mentioned we’ve had similar results, rest assured that we’re not doing the same things hoping for a different result. We have adapted, we have altered our approach and we will continue because we’re not getting what we seek. And that’s the confetti game, to be world champs,” Tomlin said via the team’s YouTube channel.
He added that he’s turning over “every stone” to find what will work and get the Steelers back to a competitive organization.
“Our goals are really clear. It’s also really clear that we’re falling short of it, and falling short of it in a consistent way. So we’re still going to be adapting our behavior, our program, the structure of what it is that we do, to turn over every stone in an effort to get what we desire.”
It’s no surprise the Steelers are always adapting, and we saw them make significant changes last offseason, bringing Russell Wilson and Justin Fields in at quarterback and paying Patrick Queen their richest free agent contract in team history. But the results were the same as they have been since Ben Roethlisberger was the team’s quarterback, and it’s clear something isn’t working. The team’s always been focused on defense, and they have the highest-paid defense in the league, yet that unit wilted down the stretch. With the NFL’s best teams all boasting explosive offenses, maybe the Steelers will start paying more attention to that side of the ball.
There are a number of avenues they can take to change their philosophies. It’s an organization that’s been stuck on precedent, such as not giving free agents or players acquired outside the organization a higher average per year than someone currently on the roster. They don’t negotiate contract extensions in-season, either. There are a number of things that are just washed away as precedent that the team really needs to take a hard look at some of their organizational philosophies if they really want to enact change and adapt with the rest of the league.
They could also look at their coaching staff, and changes there are reportedly likely, and Tomlin acknowledged the possibility for staff changes in his press conference. But serious adaptations need to be made after another season where the Steelers fell short in the playoffs, marking five straight one-and-done appearances. After significant roster turnover last season didn’t make a difference in the end of season result, Tomlin better be turning over a lot of stones to dig deep and find what will work for this team to become consistent contenders again.
