It is an annual occurrence at this point. The Pittsburgh Steelers have a disappointing end to the season, which leads to speculation about the future of Mike Tomlin. Like clockwork, there is a very loud portion of the fan base calling for Tomlin’s job while the national media talks about him in a much more positive light.
“Mike Tomlin has been the coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers for 18 years. He’s going to the Hall of Fame. I think itis inarguable that he has done an outstanding job there,” Greenberg said via ESPN’s Get Up. “There’s no greater discrepancy than there is between the way the national media people like us perceive Mike Tomlin and the way the local people in Pittsburgh perceive Mike Tomlin.”
The playoff game hasn’t even happened yet, and Steelers fans have already written them off as having zero chance. To be fair, Vegas oddsmakers are doing the same thing with a point spread that is teetering on the edge of double digits. According to VSiN, the Steelers are currently 10-point underdogs, which is the largest spread of the Wild Card slate.
If they lose, the Steelers will have five-consecutive one-and-done postseasons under Tomlin. That obviously isn’t up to the standard that the organization has set for itself over the last 50 years. But competing in the playoffs is a lot easier said than done when you haven’t had a real quarterback threat since 2018. Even Ben Roethlisberger struggled to keep up with the rest of the playoff field in his last couple seasons.
The Steelers wasted a couple seasons on the Mitch Trubisky and Kenny Pickett experiment and now sit here with another disappointing end to a regular season with Russell Wilson fizzling out down the stretch.
The endless argument is whether the Steelers have truly had the talent to compete and whether they are maximizing that talent. When the Steelers are doing well, Tomlin receives a lot of praise for getting the most out of an average roster and his critics get quiet. When he is doing poorly, he gets grilled for not having his team fully prepared and squandering a solid roster. The truth is always somewhere in between.
“The Steeler fans are ready to move on, they do not think he’s a great coach,” Greenberg said. “I don’t think it would be extraordinarily unpopular locally if the Steelers did entertain that possibility.”
The latest talking point is Adam Schefter floating the idea of teams being interested in trading for Mike Tomlin, including one team that has reportedly reached out. Even Schefter noted that Tomlin is appreciated more outside Pittsburgh than he is in Pittsburgh.
If the Steelers upset the Ravens, the conversations will go back to being favorable toward Tomlin. If they lose, there will be a portion of the fan base calling for his job all offseason.
For every successful transition from one head coach to the next, there are 10 that go poorly. The grass isn’t always greener, but sometimes it is.
