Football
Mike Tomlin has been a mainstay in the top five or six coaches in the NFL for a long time now. As the longest-tenured head coach in the league, his longevity and early-career success have likely secured his spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame some day. But his recent track record has reached a breaking point on how he’s viewed among his contemporaries. CBS Sports’ Cody Benjamin released his annual head coach rankings this morning and Tomlin is starting to slip out of the top tier coming in at No. 10.
“Etched into history for his long and illustrious tenure but equally debated among Steelers faithful for his now-eight-year streak of postseason duds, Tomlin is a tough one to tackle,” Benjamin wrote. “He consistently defies the odds by dragging outdated offenses and streaky defenses into the wild-card race, but if meaningful wins are the standard in Pittsburgh, well, he’s run into quite a wall.
“Putting all his eggs into the basket of a 41-year-old Aaron Rodgers may be worthwhile and/or entertaining but also speaks to his desperation.”
Ranked sixth for the past two years and fourth in 2022, Tomlin has been steadily slipping in these rankings as the Steelers continue to extend their postseason victory drought. Non-losing seasons can only be deemed impressive for so long without playoff success before they start to lose its luster. I think we are well beyond that point with nearly a decade of postseason futility.
Late-career Ben Roethlisberger and the misfit quarterbacks who have played in Pittsburgh since have limited the Steelers’ ceiling. We are about to see if 41-year-old Aaron Rodgers can buck the trend of quarterbacks over 40 years old to finally bring the Steelers back to a run in the postseason. I see this as the best roster, top to bottom, that the Steelers have had since at least 2018.
If Tomlin can’t lead them to a playoff win, it’s fair to wonder if he ever will, or if he’s the right person for the job as they draft and develop the quarterback of the future in Pittsburgh.
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