Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin has a reputation for getting more out of his players than you would expect. It’s part of his reputation as a player’s coach. And it’s arguably why he’s got the longest streak of non-losing seasons to begin an NFL head coaching career.
But there is little doubt that the Steelers have struggled in the playoffs in recent years. They haven’t won a playoff game since 2016 and most aren’t optimistic that will change this postseason. The defense has struggled against top opponents this year under defensive coordinator Teryl Austin. The offense is struggling to score points and has been horrible on first downs under offensive coordinator Arthur Smith.
And that’s why Jared Dubin of CBSSports.com has the Steelers ranked so low on his list of playoff coaching staffs. He has them 12th out of 14. That’s Tier 4, which he defines as, “We have some questions.”
“The Steelers’ coaching staff consistently gets more out of the talent on the roster than should reasonably be expected,” Dubin wrote. “But they also haven’t won a playoff game since 2016. (Also, down the stretch of the season, they weren’t getting all that much more out of the roster than they should’ve been. The defense backslid and the offense has fallen apart now that Russell Wilson has stopped running hot on deep balls).”
The Steelers were once one of the best scoring defenses in the league. They’re still top 10, but it’s a far cry from the top-three ranking they held earlier in the season. They did finish tied for most takeaways this season with 33. But it’s hard to ignore the eight games where they gave up 20 or more points. Especially when they gave up at least 27 three times in their last four games, all against playoff teams.
And, as I noted above, the offense has been terrible on first downs all season. They are last in the league at 4.6 yards per first-down play. And then you throw in the fact that the offense has failed to score more than 17 points in the Steelers’ last four games, and it’s not a rosy picture. It’s even got Dan Orlovsky pitching the idea that the Steelers should use QB Justin Fields on some first downs to help alleviate the problems.
Now Dubin’s ranking is of the entire coaching staff. He doesn’t go into great detail about the individual coaches. So is Mike Tomlin the core issue or is it the jobs Arthur Smith and Teryl Austin are doing? He doesn’t really say who he blames.
But the reality is that the Steelers lost their last four games of the regular season. Even Mike Tomlin admitted that the game plan against the Cincinnati Bengals could be called into question. So the Steelers haven’t proven that their coaching staff is among the elite of the NFL at this moment.
But I would be willing to bet that if the Steelers beat the Baltimore Ravens on Saturday, Dubin would probably give the Steelers a nice bump in the standings.
