Despite many fans, myself included, thinking it wouldn’t happen, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Mike Tomlin broke up this offseason. After 19 years at the helm, he has decided to take a step back for at least a year as Pittsburgh goes in a different direction.
As the Steelers dust off their head coaching search material from the closet, one has to take some time to reflect on his success with the team. It is truly the end of an era for the city.
All of that being said, the Steelers should consider themselves lucky if they can find a coach like Tomlin during this next hiring cycle.
The Pittsburgh Steelers would be lucky to land a coach similar to Mike Tomlin
While he has plenty of detractors, Tomlin still found a way to win. His team rallied around him and always remained competitive in a playoff sense.
I will be the first to admit that I think the on-field game had passed him by. Other teams were developing better schemes to attack and defend the field. It felt like Pittsburgh never got to that same level.
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Instead, he got the best out of his players and used his aura to bring talent to the Steelers. That worked well when the on-the-field play was better, but the narrative got harder to justify as success wavered down the stretch.
However, coaching in one spot for 19 years is quite the feat. That kind of stability is almost impossible to come by.
While his “never had a losing season” became a mocking term for his tenure, it is impressive that he never had a season with a bad record. That just doesn’t happen. No, it doesn’t make up for the lack of playoff success, but it is still an impressive feat.
As we head into our first head coaching search in nearly two decades, you have to hope you can find a leader who did it as well as Tomlin did.
Did the game pass him by? I believe so, but that doesn’t take away from his impressive tenure in Pittsburgh. While the next coach needs to bring some fresh ideas to this team, one has to hope that he has the staying power that Tomlin had while here.