Under Mike Tomlin, the Steelers have yet to draft a successful quarterback. For most of his career as a head coach, he hasn’t needed to, because he had Ben Roethlisberger. However, he is going into Year 4 of the post-Roethlisberger years, and things aren’t looking any better. It is no surprise, then, that he has his share of skeptics when it comes to evaluating the position. And really, that isn’t necessarily limited to quarterbacks.
Tomlin inherited Roethlisberger in 2007 when he took the Steelers’ head coaching job. Roethlisberger continued to play through the 2021 season before retiring—largely at the team’s request. Since then, they have drafted Kenny Pickett in the first round and pursued former first-round busts, plus Russell Wilson. And they still haven’t won a playoff game, surprisingly enough.
“I am not the strongest believer in Mike Tomlin’s assessment of quarterback play up until this point,” Aditi Kinkhabwala said on 93.7 The Fan about the Steelers head coach. “There are certain people who, when they tell me certain things about quarterbacks, I just [have] no questions, no skepticism, completely believe how they assess quarterback or how they evaluate the quarterback, or what they believe a quarterback is capable of within their system. That’s just not my feelings on Mike Tomlin right now.”
The topic at the time was Shedeur Sanders and whether Mike Tomlin really viewed him as a franchise quarterback. Some believe Sanders may fall to 21, making him available for Pittsburgh to draft. They brought him in for a pre-draft visit, so there is some obvious interest.
“Do I feel that Mike Tomlin believes that Shedeur Sanders is his answer for the next 10 years?” Kinkhabwala asked. “I think anything is possible when Mike Tomlin is making the decision.”
Mike Tomlin and the Steelers have been chasing Aaron Rodgers for about a month. Rodgers just told the world that, basically, he isn’t really focused on football right now. Presumably, he made the team aware of this weeks ago when he visited for five hours.
While the Steelers signed Mason Rudolph, with whom Tomlin is reportedly comfortable, that is clearly not their current preferred plan. There isn’t much they can do but wait for Rodgers and prepare for the draft.
The problem is that Tomlin and the Steelers don’t have much credibility when evaluating quarterbacks. Being the only team to draft a quarterback in the first two rounds of the awful class of 2022 feels like an indictment. The fact that they had their pick of all available quarterbacks only makes it worse. They handpicked Kenny Pickett and then pursued Russell Wilson two years later.
Of course, every team will make mistakes, and most first-round quarterbacks don’t work out. It’s not a shock that Tomlin hasn’t found a new franchise quarterback for the Steelers within four years. Teams tend to go much longer than that between franchise quarterbacks, if they even have more than one. But the past few weeks, months, or indeed years haven’t exactly helped their reputation when it comes to evaluating quarterbacks.
