M&T Bank Stadium (Baltimore) — The Pittsburgh Steelers needed the win to stop their midseason fade and gain a little control in the AFC North. They needed it for momentum, and maybe to clear their path to the playoffs.
But given the swirl of speculation around their surprisingly embattled head coach, maybe beating the Baltimore Ravens meant something a little more, too.
“[It] means maybe you guys will shut the hell up for a week,” Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers said at the podium following Sunday’s win.
Don’t count on it. Until Mike Tomlin clears up his future intentions, the speculation — and maybe the Mike Tomlin Watch — isn’t going to go away any time soon.
So while that was a nice sentiment Rodgers conveyed to the media after the Steelers’ 27-22 win over the Ravens on Sunday afternoon, here is the reality: There’s still a chance that Tomlin is coaching his final games with the Pittsburgh Steelers after 19 mostly successful seasons. Many people around the NFL believe that if the Steelers (7-6) don’t hold on and win their division, make the playoffs, and maybe even win their first playoff game in nine years, Tomlin and the Steelers could conclude it’s time for a divorce.
So far, the 53-year-old Tomlin hasn’t said much about his future, and neither has Steelers management, including owner Art Rooney II. But they’re going to have to say something at some point in the next few months. Tomlin is signed through the end of the 2026 season with a team option for 2027, a team source confirmed. And while that source told me there is “virtually no chance” Tomlin will be fired, the March 1 deadline for the Steelers to decide whether to pick up the 2027 option on his contract looms very large.
Aaron Rodgers offered a defense of his head coach on Sunday, but that singular win won’t be enough to cool the hot seat talk surrounding Mike Tomlin. (Photo by Scott Taetsch/Getty Images)
If they don’t, Tomlin would theoretically have to coach next season as a “lame duck,” where the pressure to win and questions about his future would be constant and overwhelming. It seems unlikely either side would want that to happen.
The more likely scenario is that Tomlin and Rooney meet right after the season to discuss his long-term future — and whether they believe it should be in Pittsburgh, or if one or both of them come to the conclusion that it’s better for everyone to move on.
Until they do, Tomlin can dismiss the speculation as “outside noise” all he wants, and he can get his players to parrot that phrase, as they almost all did on Sunday afternoon. But that noise is going to continue. One win, big as it was, wasn’t enough to stop it all.
“No, of course not. That’s just the way it is,” Steelers cornerback Brandin Echols told me after the game. “Look, I don’t pay attention to it. I’m pretty sure he don’t either. Do you like hearing that, especially with someone who’s got so much history in the organization? No.
“But fans are fans. They’re going to do or say whatever they want.”
The problem is, the noise isn’t just coming from angry fans. The groundswell rising up against the coach goes beyond the “Fire Tomlin!” chants that were mixed in with the boos two weeks ago at Acrisure Stadium. He took blindside hits from two former players, and two Steelers legends, last week, too. First his former quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, said on his podcast that “Maybe it’s a clean-house time” in Pittsburgh. Then former Steelers linebacker James Harrison went on a podcast to say he never thought Tomlin was “a great coach” and added “I know the Steelers historically don’t move on from coaches, but I think it’s time that history be made.”
So at least a little of that “outside noise” is coming from inside their extended house, which makes it harder to ignore.
“Any guy in the building could care less,” Steelers linebacker Patrick Queen told reporters following the win. “It’s a brotherhood. It’s a family. We’ve got each other’s backs. All we care about is what’s in the building. All the stuff outside we could care less about.”
Time for the Steelers to move off Mike Tomlin?
Of course, that doesn’t make Tomlin’s future any less relevant, even for a franchise that has been a model of stability in the chaotic sports world. The Steelers haven’t fired a head coach since they booted Bill Austin after he went 2-11-1 in 1968. Over the last 57 seasons, they’ve had just three head coaches — Chuck Noll (23 years), Bill Cowher (15) and Tomlin (19).
And that stability has fostered success. They’ve won six Super Bowls in the previous 56 years, been to the playoffs 34 times, won 24 division championships, and have only suffered through 10 losing seasons — three of which came in Noll’s first three seasons, and none of which have happened with Tomlin at the helm. So understandably, Rooney is protective of that chain of stability. It helps that he has a “great” relationship with Tomlin, the team source said, too.
But he surely is not naïve to the frustration. Tomlin’s record of 190-113-2 (.626) is stellar and it includes 12 playoff berths and a Super Bowl championship in 18 seasons, and not a single year with a losing record. But Tomlin also hasn’t won a playoff game since 2016. And that run of futility includes the first-round exit last year that was the end of a particularly frustrating collapse. Those Steelers looked like contenders in mid-October with a 10-3 record. Then they lost their last five games.
So when things began to turn on the current team in mid-October after a promising 4-1 start, those simmering frustrations began to boil over. The Steelers went all-in on a championship run this season, casting their lot behind a now-42-year-old quarterback in the hopes that he could rediscover the form he last had four years ago. They made win-now moves like paying $10 million to since-released veteran corner Darius Slay, trading for veteran receiver DK Metcalf, cornerback Jalen Ramsey and tight end Jonnu Smith.
D.K. Metcalf had a strong outing against the Ravens on Sunday, but he and the other veteran additions the team made this offseason haven’t been enough to help vault the Steelers into contention status. (Photo by Randy Litzinger/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Those were short-term moves with eyes on a postseason run this season. This team wasn’t supposed to fall apart.
The win over the Ravens stabilized things temporarily. But the Steelers are still just 3-5 over the last two months and are just clinging to a one-game lead in arguably the NFL’s worst division. That’s why the ground under Tomlin’s feet appears a lot less firm than it’s been in any one of his 19 years.
“I’ve said this before, Coach T is a great leader for us, and he’s done nothing but take the bullets for us,” Metcalf told reporters following Sunday’s win. “Even when we were high or when we were low, every day he’s steady. (He) always motivated us to play our best ball. That’s what he did last week.”
Tomlin didn’t gloat about what the win may have meant to him, coming so soon after so much criticism had been heaped upon him in the wake of his team’s punchless, 26-7 home loss to the Buffalo Bills, when the fans, and maybe most of the city, seemed to turn on him. But the players were clear that they were thrilled to give the coach they seem to love at least a little break from the piling-on.
“Yes, absolutely,” linebacker Alex Highsmith told reporters. “I’m grateful for how calm he stays throughout the process, the ups and downs. He continues to come in and be the same coach. And I love playing for him. So we don’t listen to any outside noise and we’ll continue to tune it out.”
That’s much easier to do after a Steelers win. But the noise is still lingering in the background, and it likely won’t go away unless they make the playoffs and finally win at least one game. Even if that happens, though, the reality is that all good things come to an end, and at some point, that will include the Tomlin era in Pittsburgh.
Until someone says definitively otherwise, there remains a real chance that the end is near.
Ralph Vacchiano is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. He spent six years covering the Giants and Jets for SNY TV in New York, and before that, 16 years covering the Giants and the NFL for the New York Daily News. Follow him on Twitter at @RalphVacchiano.
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