Well, it's all over but the shouting, as the saying goes. Following an embarrassing first-round playoff exit, a game played at home, Mike Tomlin announced that he would step down as the Steelers' head coach. I was neither shocked nor surprised by this revelation.
Art Rooney II was neither shocked nor surprised either, according to what he said during a recent press conference. If you have not had a chance to listen to the entire press conference, I would encourage you to do so, as there are some interesting tidbits, in my opinion.
After a similar exit in the wild card round in 2024 versus the Baltimore Ravens, I wrote an article about the very conundrum in which we currently find ourselves. With Tomlin as their head coach for nearly two decades, the Steelers were always in contention; however, sans the 2008 and 2010 seasons, we could not get to the promised land.
The Pittsburgh Steelers may find out that the grass is not always greener on the other side with a new head coach
When I first became a Steelers fan, Chuck Noll was the coach. I consider myself fortunate to have witnessed the success they had in the 1970s, winning four Super Bowls over a six-year period. The 1980s were not as successful as the previous decade, but they did make it to the AFC Championship Game in 1984.
The turn of the next decade brought change for which I was frankly not ready. Following the 1991 season, Noll stepped down as the Steelers' coach. I was beside myself. Although they had not won a Super Bowl since the 1979 season, I was concerned about who our next coach would be.
Fortunately, my fears were allayed when the Steelers hired Bill Cowher, in part because Pittsburgh enjoyed instant success, making the playoffs from 1992 to 1997, which included a trip to the Super Bowl in 1995. Although the Steelers lost that game, a game they probably should have won, I always felt like they would remain contenders.
Cowher's tenure brought the Steelers a fifth Lombardi Trophy following the 2005 season; however, after an 8-8 campaign in 2006, Cowher stepped down. I was once again devastated, although I was not particularly thrilled with the lack of success in the 'big games', e,g., multiple AFC Championships and the 1995 Super Bowl.
When they hired Mike Tomlin, I frankly knew nothing about him, but I had faith that the Steelers made the right decision. Not experiencing a losing season in the 19 years that Tomlin was head coach is a remarkable and unfathomable accomplishment.
Neither Noll nor Cowher could boast of having the same success, but I believe that the next head coach will forever be compared to Tomlin, at least in that respect. The next head coach may need to have instant success, similar to what Cowher enjoyed right out of the chute.
The next head coach may turn out to be the antithesis of Noll, Cowher, and Tomlin in the sense that success may elude whoever it is. If that scenario plays out, which I truly hope it does not, the Steelers will be in a vicious cycle of having to hire a head coach every five years.
If they find themselves having to hire a new coach every five years, which would inherently mean they suffered five failed seasons in a row, the Steelers franchise will have been set back to the point where any Super Bowl aspirations will have gone by the way side.
That would also mean that 'top-flight' free agents may not want to play for us because we're not competitive. That is exactly the 'catch-22' in which the Steelers are in right now. Say what you want about the lack of postseason success we had under Tomlin, we had a chance to make some noise, so to speak, almost every season.
I will not speculate about who the next head coach will be, but I will say this: Art Rooney and the Steelers front office must, and I emphasize the word must, get this right the first time around. If we don't, the Steelers will become just another NFL franchise. We are not just another NFL franchise. We are the Pittsburgh Steelers, and we need to win this coaching search.