PITTSBURGH — Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin has come under fire in recent weeks, with his team limping to the finish of the regular season and the first losing season of the Tomlin era looking more and more likely. But despite the Steelers’ struggles this season and their lack of playoff success in recent years, ownership has no intentions of making a change at head coach. In fact, they plan on keeping Tomlin around long-term.
There’s a lot of outside noise. Prior to the Steelers vs. Bengals beginning, Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk stated on the NBC pregame broadcast that “inside, it’s business as usual.” “They’re not interested in changing the coach. There’s no reason to think Tomlin wishes to go. In fact, they’d prefer to extend his contract, which is set to expire in 2024. They want to finish it before the start of the upcoming season. He’s already contributing to the roster preparation for both the current and upcoming seasons.”
It would be head coach Tomlin’s first losing season if the Steelers dropped two more games. In nine of his seventeen years as manager, he has won ten or more games and finished above.500 three times. In only his second season as head coach, Tomlin won the Steelers their sixth Super Bowl championship in 2008. In terms of wins and playoff victories all-time, he is first in team history and third overall. Though the Steelers entered Week 15 with a 7-7 record and a slim chance of qualifying for the playoffs, the 2023 season—which began with a tonne of excitement from the preseason—has been an utter bust.
