By Qwame Skinner on

“You don’t want to be a team that’s just good enough to make the playoffs. You want to be a team that’s good enough to win the Super Bowl.”

Mike Tomlin is in his 19th season as the head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers and has never once posted a losing record. It’s time for the franchise to do what’s best for both sides and fire him agree to mutually part ways.

Winning nine or 10 games year after year is fine enough, but it’s not the goal, and it’s not what a franchise with the history of the Steelers should aspire to achieve. The Steelers are seeking their seventh Super Bowl, and it has become abundantly clear that Tomlin is not going to lead them there.

The Steelers haven’t won a playoff game since 2016, suffering six straight postseason defeats, and will play against the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday night for the AFC North title and the right to do it again.

There’s a sentiment nationally that Tomlin is elevating middling rosters to playoff contention season after season, but that’s not especially true. The Steelers are mired in a loop of mediocrity, and that’s the fault of Mike Tomlin.

Pittsburgh lost to the 3-12 Cleveland Browns on Sunday, failing to punch their ticket to the playoffs and earn their veteran roster a much-needed week of rest ahead of a potential playoff run. It’s not hard to see why fans have dubbed Steelers losses to far inferior opponents a “Tomlin Special.” Pittsburgh is winless in its last five games against teams eight or more games under .500. How’s that possible?

“We play to win. We don’t live in our fears.”

Tomlin gave the above quote after a win over the Titans in 2024, but reality tells a different story. Tomlin drew national ire earlier this season for his game management in a win over the Minnesota Vikings in Dublin, Ireland.

Against Minnesota, as he has for the bulk of his career, Tomlin coached not to lose, rather than to win. In the game, four-time MVP quarterback Aaron Rodgers had to demand that his head coach go for a fourth-down, goal-to-go attempt from the four to put the game out of reach.

Tomlin eventually conceded, electing for a handoff that gets stuffed. Later on, fourth and less than a yard from just outside the Vikings’ 30, still hanging onto a three-point lead, Tomlin elects to punt, rather than go for the win.

In an era where Dan Campbell and the Detroit Lions have taken the league by storm with their aggression, and with the widespread availability of advanced analytics, you’d think Tomlin would adjust, and for a while, it looked like he might.

Following an embarrassing home loss to the Buffalo Bills, in which fans chanted “fire Tomlin,” the veteran coach responded with three of his most aggressive game plans, and his game management followed suit. The result? Three straight wins. Even Steelers journalist Nick Farabaugh of PennLive.com was impressed with what he was seeing from Tomlin, and there was an excited buzz around the franchise entering the tilt against the Browns.

Then, Tomlin reverted back to his old ways and went on to cost his team a combined 14% in win probability with his fourth down decision-making alone.

The Steelers were, of course, without star wide receiver DK Metcalf, who is suspended through the end of the regular season due to his involvement in an altercation with a fan during a game against the Detroit Lions. Someone might argue that they didn’t have the personnel to play aggressively. They’d be wrong.

“They can catch the ball or get replaced by guys who will.”

For the entirety of Pittsburgh’s playoff win drought, Tomlin’s personnel management has plagued his teams. It’s a recurring problem that has reared its ugly head again this season, and did again on Sunday. Pittsburgh traded with the Miami Dolphins in the offseason to acquire Jalen Ramsey, who has been a revelation for Pittsburgh this season after moving to safety, and tight end Jonnu Smith, who worked with Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith in their shared time with the Atlanta Falcons.

Smith is coming off a career-best year with the Miami Dolphins. This season, he has been a disaster. Smith has been the most inefficient pass catcher not only for the Steelers, but in the entire league this season, averaging less than five yards per target, not catch. Smith is also an abhorrent blocker. By and large, his shortcomings have not affected his usage this season (he played less against Detroit), much to the detriment of Pittsburgh’s best pass-catching tight end, Pat Freiermuth.

The Steelers weren’t only without Metcalf on Sunday. They were also missing WR2 Calvin Austin III. Pittsburgh’s best, and arguably only, man-beater this season has been second-year receiver Roman Wilson. The Browns sport a heavy man-coverage defense. Wilson has been inactive for the last several games, but Tomlin preached all week about the opportunity in front of the young pass catcher.

Inexcusably, come gameday, Wilson played a total of nine snaps, running a whopping two routes, with Pittsburgh electing to prioritize the likes of Scotty Miller, Adam Thielen, and Marques Valdez-Scantling.

Both personnel blunders manifested in Pittsburgh’s final drive against Cleveland. On a day when the Steelers failed to reach the endzone. Freiermuth, emphasized for the first time the entire game, connecting with Rodgers multiple times to get the Steelers into goal-to-go. Then Rodgers targeted a blanketed Valdez-Scantling, three straight times to no avail.

Tomlin’s personnel shortcomings aren’t limited to his roster decisions, either.

“I’m a big believer in the idea that you don’t rise to the occasion, you sink to the level of your training.”

It feels like Tomlin has missed on coordinator hire after coordinator hire. What was the level of training of previous offensive coordinator Matt Canada, known to Steelers fans as the worst OC in franchise history?

He was promoted to the position after a year as quarterback’s coach with a fraction of the resume that the usual offensive coordinator would have. What did Canada have? A history with the Tomlin family. He was the offensive coordinator for the Maryland Terrapins, where he offered Dino Tomlin, Mike’s son, a scholarship and where Dino went on to play.

Canada was begrudgingly relieved of his duties by Tomlin mid-season, and while Arthur Smith has been an improvement, the offense is far from explosive.

On the other side of the ball, defensive coordinator Teryl Austin has squandered elite defense after elite defense, along with the prime of T.J. Watt. Austin’s refusal to adapt has turned Pittsburgh’s defense into the yearly laughing stock of opposing offenses.

“You knew exactly what they were doing,” former Patriots wideout Julian Edelman said of Pittsburgh’s defense. “And they still do what they did. They still do the same God d*** s*** [as] when I was playing [Mike] Tomlin’s defense

“I’m like, ‘We still have linebackers covering the three slot?’ Every time we play the Steelers, I have at least nine catches. You would think that they would change it, but no, they do what they do.”

Austin’s unit has improved as this season has stretched on, and the personnel usage on that side of the ball has improved, but it has been more so due to injuries than anything Tomlin or Austin have planned for.

“The standard is the standard.”

So, what is that standard under Mike Tomlin? In his 19 seasons as the Steelers’ head coach, Tomlin has won a playoff game in only four of those seasons. And when he gets there, now the losses aren’t competitive. Pittsburgh hasn’t possessed the ball with the lead in a single one of its last six playoff losses.

There’s the argument that he hasn’t had a quarterback or an offense capable of winning, but Ben Roethlisberger, Le’Veon Bell, and Antonio Brown still lost to Blake Bortles and the Jaguars in 2018. Besides, Tomlin has more of a say on the Steelers’ roster than most head coaches are given.

On Sunday, the Steelers will face off against the same Ravens team that ended their season a year ago. They very well may win, and the winner will earn a home playoff game in an AFC playoffs that won’t feature Patrick Mahomes, Burrow, or, if the Steelers make it, Lamar Jackson. It’s the softest field the AFC has seen in a decade, and if Tomlin falls short once again, there’s only one move for the franchise to make.

Otherwise, it’ll be Mac Jones or Malik Willis at quarterback next year, and they’ll lead Pittsburgh to another non-losing season, but this franchise used to have standards.

About Qwame Skinner

Qwame Skinner has loved both writing and sports his entire life. In addition to his sports coverage at Comeback Media, Qwame writes novels, and his debut; The First Casualty, an adult fantasy, is out now.

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