Pittsburgh Steelers fans gnashed their teeth in 2024 when the Cleveland Browns hired Mike Vrabel as a consultant. The surprise firing of the previous coaching cycle, Vrabel has an established resume, and he quickly found a new post in 2025. Perhaps with an eye toward him all along, the New England Patriots fired Jerod Mayo after just one season.
Ray Fittipaldo of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette believes Mike Tomlin and the Steelers should find this year’s Mike Vrabel. Of course, there might not necessarily be one, at least not of that stature. When most teams fire their head coach, the move doesn’t surprise anybody, and there have been no surprises this year.
“Some assistants will go. They just haven’t been announced or leaked out yet”, Fittipaldo said about the Steelers’ staff in a recent chat. “As far as major moves go, maybe Tomlin can get one of the coaches who doesn’t land a head coaching job. The Browns added Mike Vrabel last year as a consultant. The Steelers should do that this year with some coaches who are currently out of a job”.
Of course, the Steelers have employed their Mike Vrabel before, recently, in fact. In 2022, after his surprise firing, Mike Tomlin hired Brian Flores to act as a senior defensive assistant. He parlayed that into a gig as the Vikings’ DC and is now interviewing for head coaching jobs.
There are some notable or at least interesting names this year, though, to be honest. The biggest name is Mike McCarthy, but he could land with another team, like the Saints. A popular name is likely to be Robert Saleh. If the Steelers want to bring aboard a senior assistant among fired head coaches, I would actually call Antonio Pierce. Or maybe Larry Foote’s contract is up with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, to go a different route.
The Steelers perennially have among the smallest coaching staffs in the NFL. The popular retort that it’s because the Rooney are cheap, yet they’re paying Mike Tomlin $50 million over three years. The Steelers’ staff isn’t small for budgetary reasons but because Tomlin wants it that way.
While there has been debate about potentially firing DC Teryl Austin, Tomlin largely runs the show. Yet Brian Flores did seem to have an impact on the defense, with the players regularly talking about it. The problem is you don’t just find Mike Vrabels and Brian Floreses looking for demotions.
And when it comes to Flores that hire seemed to be more about Flores than the Steelers. Tomlin wanted to give him an opportunity when he couldn’t find one, throwing him a lifeline. That raises the red flag because it doesn’t suggest Tomlin feels that role is particularly crucial.
Then again, Teryl Austin served as a senior defensive assistant before succeeding Keith Butler as the Steelers’ DC. But Tomlin hasn’t seen fit to find another senior assistant since Flores left for the Vikings in 2023.
