Blame Mike Tomlin for Steelers
The Pittsburgh Steelers’ loss to the Arizona Cardinals is one that could go down as one of the worst in the Mike Tomlin era. Three of the Steelers’ four losses this year have seemingly been considered “the worst of the Tomlin era,” and right there lies the problem.
At the time, losing to the Houston Texans seemed to be quite an embarrassment. A rookie quarterback making his fourth NFL start should’ve had the Steelers salivating. Instead, CJ Stroud hung 30 points on the Steelers with 300-plus yards and a couple of touchdowns. We now see that the Texans might just be a good football team as they sit 7-5 with the Steelers.
Then, a few weeks ago, the Steelers suffered defeat at the hands of the Cleveland Browns in Cleveland. In the days of Ben Roethlisberger, the Steelers wouldn’t even think about losing on the road against the Browns. He legitimately owned them.
Doing the unthinkable, Dorian Thompson-Robinson led the Browns over the Steelers 13-10 and forced the Steelers to finally rid themselves of Matt Canada and his incredibly inept offensive game plan.
This should’ve been a jolt to everyone in the organization. The Steelers don’t fire coaches in season. They did it with Canada, and that should’ve sent shockwaves through the organization. They won last week 16-10 and left points on the board doing it.
In the matchup with the Cardinals, they looked flat-out unprepared and many of the words and actions of the players postgame make it seem like they’re legitimately rattled after this game. A fragile Steelers team will face another “cupcake” opponent in the New England Patriots on Thursday night.
Look, Mike Tomlin is one of the best regular season coaches in history. Not one losing season on his resumè is a nice feather in his cap. But it doesn’t mean squat without a playoff win since 2017. It doesn’t mean a thing if the Steelers routinely finish with a mediocre record and get a middling first-round pick that doesn’t qualify as a “franchise-altering”-type of player.
I brought up the Canada debacle earlier because these are the hires Tomlin makes. He brings in guys who have no threat to his job as the head coach and because of this, he’s got no coaching tree. More and more, the younger head coaches are getting the better of him.
Demeco Ryans. Jonathan Gannon. Kyle Shanahan. Kevin Stefanski. These are the four head coaches that have beaten Tomlin this season. While every single coach in the NFL - aside from Bill Belichick - was hired more recently than Mike Tomlin, these are four of the more highly-regarded younger coaches in football. It’s becoming a trend.
Hires like Randy Fichtner, Teryl Austin, Matt Canada, Eddie Faulkner, and Mike Sullivan are guys who Tomlin comfortably feels like he is better than without saying it directly. He knows the job is his as long as he wants it in Pittsburgh. That’s just the reality. He makes sure to surround himself with “yes men.”
Tomlin is held in high regard for being able to keep locker rooms together, but this seems as fragile and as broken a locker room as the Steelers have had since Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell. That’s a bit scary.
Thursday night against Bill Belichick at home will be a very telling sign for both head coaches. It’ll be the two-longest tenured head coaches in the NFL facing off, both of which arguably may be losing their fastballs.
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