The NFL celebrates the first Monday after the season by lowly teams firing off their head coaches. Dubbed “Black Monday”, this is a time when teams that didn’t do as well as they thought they would fire their head coaches in hopes of rebuilding. The Pittsburgh Steelers are famously inactive on this day given their long track record of keeping their head coaches.
This year, there is certainly a case to be made that the Steelers should be active on this day. While this day is usually reserved for head coach firings, the team has quite a few lackluster coaches that need to be cut. Here are four Steelers coaches that should be fired on Black Monday.
Steelers should fire Pat Meyer
The Steelers offensive line has been a mess since their top-level talent retired and moved on. The team has recently invested heavily in the line over the past two seasons, signing two top free-agent guards and investing a first-round pick in Broderick Jones. While the talent isn’t completely there, this line should at least be among the better units in the league.
While it looked like the Steelers had turned the corner about halfway through last season, the blocking unit once again faltered this year. It seemed like the unit needed to figure itself out again even though most of these players had worked together last season.
With all this said, Pat Meyer needs to be let go this offseason. This line needs to be a more consistent unit, and Meyer hasn’t provided that. There is a strong core of talent to work with, and this team needs to invest in a coach that will get the most out of the talent on this roster.
Steelers need to fire Mike Sullivan
While Mike Sullivan has partially taken over the role of offensive coordinator, that isn’t the reason for his firing. The offense has been okay with him at the helm, but it certainly hasn’t been spectacular. The reason he needs to be let go is because of his work in the quarterback room.
Has there been a bigger disappointment than the quarterback room for the Steelers this season? The hope was for some steady improvement out of second-year quarterback Kenny Pickett. He had found his footing towards the end of his first season, and he looked like an elite passer during the preseason.
Once the regular season began though, everything went up in flames. Pickett seemingly regressed from his rookie season, and the issues he had were amplified in year two. He was missing open receivers regularly, forcing passes he shouldn’t have, and he had no real pocket presence.
This hampered the offense beyond just the passing game as well. Defenses realized that simple coverages would negate Pickett throwing the ball, so they could load the box up and focus on limiting the run. This meant more responsibility on Pickett, which he couldn’t handle, and then rinse and repeat.
Sullivan is a very experienced coordinator, so it was shocking to see Pickett play so poorly under him. Perhaps he is just that bad, but then the struggles continued with Mitch Trubisky. Even if it was purely a player issue, Sullivan should have recommended a quarterback change. He hasn’t fulfilled his job this season, and I see no reason to keep him.
Steelers need to fire Teryl Austin
Of the names on this list so far, I do think Teryl Austin is the most deserving to stay. While his tenure has had a lot of disappointment, there has also been a good deal of positives. My issue is that while the end results are acceptable, the process to get there isn’t.
The Steelers defense was very middle of the pack in most regards this year in terms of yards allowed. This has been the case for most of the previous seasons, especially when it comes to run defense. Every offseason one of the goals of the defense is to play the run better, but they never do.
The defense shines in two categories though: points allowed and takeaways. In a high-scoring NFL, the Steelers do just enough to bend and not break while also getting turnovers. This is a good thing, and quite frankly, it is the only reason this team was competitive this season.
The issue then becomes the makeup of this defense. The Steelers have superstars at every level, one of the deepest edge rooms, and got surprising production from their defensive rookies and new additions in the linebacker room. The way this unit has been invested in, they should be excelling everywhere. Austin isn’t getting the most out of this unit.
Soon enough, the spending will have to shift over to the offense as some of those stars expect paydays. That will mean a trim on the defense, and I am not confident that this unit will remain in the middle of the pack without the elite talent. We need a coordinator who will get more out of the defense, and that hasn’t been Austin.
Steelers need to fire Mike Tomlin
I’ve gone back and forth with this one, but I think I am at the point where I am ready to fire Mike Tomlin. No, he isn’t a horrible coach like many claim, and he does a lot of things well. I think the game has passed him by though, and his goals are more preservative as opposed to aggressive.
I’ve written numerous times about how the Steelers standard of competing for Super Bowls has regressed to simply having winning seasons. That isn’t good enough for this team, yet everyone is so focused on that fact. Heck, once the Steelers locked in a winning season, everyone poured out about how Tomlin was back and an elite coach.
My issue is that Tomlin has had the past few seasons to really craft this team in his image. The offense shifted into a conservative unit that can’t compete with the elite ones in the league as opposed to taking risks to return to the upper tier of units. This helps preserve that winning season record, but it doesn’t provide fruit in the postseason.
I also think that Tomlin has struggled to make changes in the middle of the season and in the middle of games. While wide-reaching changes aren’t always feasible, the Steelers were in Groundhog Day for much of this season. The offense sucked, the defense couldn’t do enough, and this team was losing games they should have been winning. The same can be argued on a per-season basis, as this team is limping to a respectable output but not providing anything more than that.
Does firing Tomlin carry some risks? Absolutely, but this team needs a facelift to rebuild itself. That likely means a lean season or two, and I’m not confident Tomlin is willing to allow that even if it means greater success afterward. For those reasons, I think this team should part ways with Tomlin on Black Monday.
With the dreaded Black Monday almost here, quite a few coaches will be out of work due to their lack of success. The Steelers would be wise to follow suit and fire these four coaches due to their lackluster results.