NFL
By: Brock Vierra
I would like to begin by stating that I have the utmost respect for Mike Tomlin and I am in no way advocating for the Steelers to move on from their Super Bowl-winning head coach. Besides, if the Steelers were to fire him, he’d have another head job before he even began to clean out his office. However, after last night’s dismal performance in the Steelers’ 21-18 home loss to the Patriots, Tomlin needs to be asked some tough questions.
According to the Associated Press, Pittsburgh (7-6) is the first team above .500 in NFL history to lose consecutive games to teams both at least eight games below .500. With the loss, Pittsburg has lost its Wild Card spot and will need a near spotless finish to the season to make the postseason.
Now Tomlin’s team performed awfully on Thursday night. They went 3/14 on third down, went 1/3 on fourth down, and continually failed to make progress on offense. These are all Mike Tomlin’s fault so let’s break down his multitude of failures.
Mike Tomlin’s lack of a succession plan for Big Ben has come to bite him
We, the American public knew that Ben Roethlisberger was on his last leg for some time now. 2019 was the starting point when he was injured for the majority of the season but there was some hope that he would bounce back after a career-high year in 2018.
Then we saw Ben in 2020 and despite the Steelers’ excellent start to the year, it was clear that his best days were behind him. The Steelers, already trying to be proactive, were grooming Mason Rudolph to be his successor. Why? I don’t know. I understand that former GM Kevin Colburn put tremendous stock in him but we saw Duck Hodges outplay him in 2019 so that should’ve ended that experiment. Rudolph is still on the team.
The Steelers’ solution was to bring in the late Dwayne Haskins but Haskins has a clear ceiling and that wasn’t going to change. Despite the clear need for a successor, the Steelers did not draft a QB in the 2021 offseason while trotting out a diminished Big Ben for a final horah.
I get it. There wasn’t a QB that was available that the Steelers liked. No one had a high stock on Davis Mills so I don’t blame them. However, to skip on all those guys just to select Kenny Pickett in the first round is near malpractice. The Packers put Jordan Love on ice for almost his entire rookie contract, and the Steelers’ overreliance on Big Ben without an actual succession plan shows how dysfunctional they are at the top.
The lack of talent on the offensive line is unacceptable
Webster, Dawson, Faneca, Pouncey, Mansfield, Ilkin, Kemoeatu, Colon. Those names are synonymous with protection and dominance. The names on the current offensive line do not echo those sentiments. The Steelers have done an awful job in their o-line construction and that’s on Tomlin.
I do not want to hear that Tomlin had no say regarding his roster and it was all Colburn because we all know that’s not possible. Chuck Noll had a say in his roster, Bill Cowher had a say in his roster and Mike Tomlin does in his and the misses are glaring.
The Steelers took Pat Friermuth over Creed Humphrey, Najee Harris over Landon Dickerson, Kenny Pickett over Tyler Smith and Tyler Linderbaum, Calvin Austin over Zach Tom and the list goes on and on and on. That was from the last two years. Oh, and the free-agent market hasn’t been better for them either. A continual failure by Tomlin.
His coaching hires have been horrendous
In Mike Tomlin’s lone Super Bowl victories, AHC John Mitchell, OC Bruce Arians, and DC Dick Lebeau were already employed by the Steelers before Tomlin’s arrival. In fact, Tomlin retained 7 members of Bill Cowher’s staff. Once those assistant coaches moved on, Tomlin failed to adequately replace those coaches’ production.
We have to fast forward to the 2020s. Through the Steelers’ culture of promoting in-house, Mike Tomlin has only had to make outside hires in recent years and those hires have been awful. Todd Haley was average at best but Ben and the killer Bs made up for his deficiency. The egregious hire was Matt Canada.
Matt Canada was awful. Statistically, he sucked, his flaws were also covered up by Big Ben but when given Kenny Pickett, he could not put Pittsburg in a position to be a competent offense. How he got the job was beyond me. At Maryland, his offense didn’t come close to matching the proficiency of his predecessor Mike Locksley, and then when Canada was made interim coach before the 2018 season. They went 5-7.
Maryland would let go of Canada and Locksley would return as head coach. While Maryland will be playing for their third straight bowl win under him in December, Canada is now unemployed. Canada was awful in 2021, he was worse in 2022 and how he got an opportunity in 2023 is a direct result of Mike Tomlin’s inability to properly hire and fire.
The defensive side of the ball isn’t better. Despite having Brian Flores, he stuck with Teryl Austin as defensive coordinator to the detriment of the team. The Patriots game was a prime example. Austin’s defense gave up 21 points to an offense that averaged 12.6 points per game. Keep in mind that New England has been shut out twice in 2023 including at home in the previous week.
Mike Tomlin has failed to rebuild his offensive line, DB room, and QB room. He has made poor hires, he has not yielded a competitive team in a long time, and while his fellow division rivals have made massive improvements, Tomlin’s Steelers remain stagnant, holding on to the fact he’s never had a losing season. Serious questions need to be asked and they need to be asked now.
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