Steelers' Mike Tomlin Has Earned More Optimism
PITTSBURGH -- The speculation about Mike Tomlin's future with the Pittsburgh Steelers - to coach or not to coach - reached a boiling point at the tail end of Wild Card Weekend. After the Steelers lost 31-17 to the Buffalo Bills, ending a frustrating, rocky and at times silly season, questions around his status with the Steelers swirled inside the postgame press conference room and outside of it.
Mike Tomlin will be back as head coach of the Steelers next season, according to a report from NFL Network's Mike Garafolo, and as you might be able to guess, the reception for Tomlin's "return" was lukewarm at best from the public when it should be hopeful. Tomlin was far from the biggest ill to plague this franchise and in fact, might be its biggest asset.
Even in the wake of another playoff loss - an ugly one at the hands of the Buffalo Bills that extended a long postseason losing streak for the Steelers and didn't even feel as close as the final score would have indicated - the players backed their head coach unequivocally.
"My thought is that he's going to be the coach here," veteran defensive lineman Cam Heyward said before the news broke. "If anybody's thinking it should be anyone else, man, you're asking for a whole lot more than just that. Mike T wants to be a Pittsburgh Steeler, is a Pittsburgh Steeler. Why would anybody ask for anything else?"
Superstar outside linebacker T.J. Watt said Tomlin was one of the biggest reasons why he opted to stay in Pittsburgh instead of exploring free agency.
"It was huge in my contract talks, is I don't want to play for anybody other than Mike T. You guys understand and see in the way that I talk about how much I respect and appreciate him as a coach, as a man, as a leader, and that's my endorsement for him."
Mike Tomlin didn't fumble twice against the Bills, throw a redzone interception, come out flat in the run game or put forth a tackling display in the Steelers secondary that would have disappointed coaches at any level of the sport.
But Tomlin was the one who made a surprising but necessary offensive coordinator change in the middle of the season in defiance of organizational tradition, inserted the new starting quarterback that kickstarted a run towards the playoffs and pieced together a defense full of contributors who were afterthoughts when the season began and made them a winning unit.
Talk as much as you want about the slow start and how much a 21-0 deficit doomed the Steelers before they could even get their footing on the freezing turf in Buffalo. But if Tomlin has to shoulder the blame for how much they fell behind, then he has to get credit for helping pull them out of that hole and rallying to a one-score deficit late in the second half.
"Every player in there wouldn't be anything without Mike T," Heyward said. "This group would not function to even get to a playoff berth without Mike T. He keeps us accountable from top to bottom and I don't want to play for any other coach."
The Buffalo loss was a microcosm of this season for the Steelers - they were overmatched in terms of talent, undermanned because of injuries and found yet more ways to dig themselves an even deeper hole by committing careless turnovers and penalties.
As it turns out, the 10-point spread that sportsbooks awarded the Bills was justified. There was apparently a reason why Buffalo earned the No. 2 seed in the AFC and the Steelers needed mountains of help to sneak in as the No. 7 seed.
It took a Herculean effort to get this flawed roster to the playoffs in the first place and losing to a team that was clearly the better group carries no shame with it, especially for Tomlin.
The reality is what the Steelers players have been saying each and every day since the 2023 season started to first turn south - the struggles that fans see week in and week out fall on the players executing, something an injection of youth or new blood wouldn't change.
Through the turmoil of this season and the rotating cast of characters who made up this imperfect, but ultimately winning football team had the luxury of Tomlin's steady presence there to keep things somewhat normal. And as the Steelers face an offseason full of more uncertainty than usual, they can take comfort in the fact that it'll be the same, steady guy leading them again in 2024.
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