The time has come for Mike Tomlin to no longer be the Pittsburgh Steelers Head Coach.
This is coming from someone who believed it wasn’t all on him and that the Super Bowl-winning coach and likely future Hall of Famer could turn the franchise around.
I’d been saying it for years. When family members would tell me, ‘the Steelers will never win again until Tomlin is gone’, I argued otherwise.
Turns out, I was wrong.
For a lot of people, we are long past the time for a coaching change, but after chants of “fire Tomlin” and booing heard during “Renegade”, the calls seems louder than ever before
But even people like me, who defended Tomlin even after an 11-0 collapse, even after losing to the Cleveland Browns in a playoff game at home when Kevin Stefanski was in his basement, is saying it is time.
Even after the Steelers put their future in the hands of Mitch Trubisky, Kenny Pickett and others after Ben Roethlisberger. Even after they drafted Najee Harris in the first-round, signed washed up veterans and picked draft bust after draft bust… it’s time.
Many will place blame on owner Art Rooney II for the team’s nearly decade-long failure, and they should.
But, the blame Rooney gets is for keeping Tomlin too long.
If you have a problem with the offense, defense, special teams, quarterback, scheme, player development it all goes back to one man, Mike Tomlin.
He isn’t the general manager, but it’s no secret the power Tomlin has in helping decide the roster.
Tomlin has also been called the de-facto defensive coordinator and hired Matt Canada as the team’s offensive coordinator until he was fired in-season two years ago.
The Steelers looked as hapless as ever in Sunday’s loss to the Buffalo Bills. Josh Allen’s offense was able to run the same play over and over, and the Steelers couldn’t do anything about it.
Schemes look bad. Even football novices are questioning how the Steelers are set up on plays. Former players are scratching their heads when they watch the tape.
Tomlin was and could still be a great coach somewhere else, but the time has come for the Steelers to move on.
If you still want to defense Tomlin… what are the pros in keeping him? Non-losing? Saying you’ve only had three coaches since 1969? Those don’t win you Super Bowls.
You can say Mike Tomlin is a great person and a great coach and still believe a change needs to be made. Both are possible!
But no man, no matter how great or talented, can do it on their own. Not even Bill Belichick.
Championships are not won by one person. Hubris will never raise the Lombardi trophy.
We’re running on a hamster wheel of mediocrity and something needs to be done.
The reality is Teryl Austin will be relieved of his duties (another non-existent branch of the Tomlin coaching tree) and another name will come in, but nothing will change.
The defense scheme that opposing offenses have been able to read for years will continue until a head coaching change is made.