When you lose five straight games, including another first-round playoff exit, you can probably expect that changes are coming in your organization. The sting of high expectations just a little over a month ago makes that particular pill even harder to swallow. Mike Tomlin acknowledged that changes are likely coming.
“For us as a collective, there’s obviously a lot that happens this time of year,” Tomlin said Tuesday during his season wrap-up press conference. “Certainly there’s change that comes with this time of year. Certainly there’s change that comes when you don’t have the desired outcome, and so those are just the realities of the business.
“I’d imagine there’s gonna be some things that change around here on a lot of levels.”
Last offseason began with the same tone, and team president Art Rooney II set the expectation that the organization’s level of frustration was starting to rise. That resulted in some pretty radical changes, relative to what normally happens within the Steelers’ stable organization.
They got rid of a recent first-round pick at quarterback and completely overhauled the QB room with Russell Wilson and Justin Fields. They brought in their first external hire at offensive coordinator since Todd Haley. They also signed Patrick Queen, making him the highest-paid external free agent signing in team history. There were plenty of changes, but they resulted in the same outcome: a 10-7 record and a first-round exit in the playoffs.
Rooney will talk to the media in the coming weeks, but I would imagine his level of frustration has increased. It was only five weeks ago that the Steelers were sitting pretty with a chance at the AFC’s No. 1 seed, the AFC North title, and all of their goals seeming attainable. Five consecutive losses created a new low for the franchise.
What changes could be made? The quarterback position is the most obvious. The Steelers have nobody under contract for 2025, and I would imagine they take a hard look at all options beyond just Fields and Wilson. Other than that, most of the changes would require breaking precedent, something they’ve had to do much more lately.
Are Teryl Austin and Arthur Smith completely safe? I lean more toward Smith getting another chance as long as he doesn’t land one of these head coach openings. There could be a mass purge of position coaches on top of it. OL coach Pat Meyer seems like a prime candidate to move on after the o-line’s struggles despite high investments in it. They suffered a lot of injuries, but that’s the way things go sometimes, and they certainly didn’t make the most of it.
No team is ever the same from year to year. But when you have a good thing going, you try to keep as many things the same as possible. The Steelers decidedly do not have a good thing going thus you can expect more-than-normal changes on the roster, front office, and coaching staff.
