Possibly Mike Tomlin’s most talked about accomplishment during his tenure as head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers is the fact that he never had a losing seasons in his nineteen seasons at the helm. While it’s certainly an impressive feat, the lack of postseason success in recent seasons led to many questioning the significance of merely treading water year after year.
Former NFL RB Maurice Jones-Drew believes that Tomlin was a victim of his own success in a way because the perennially competitive Steelers never had high draft picks.
“They were so good for so long that they couldn’t get the necessary pieces to take that next step if that makes sense,” Jones-Drew said on the Inside Coverage podcast, referring to the Steelers lack of high picks during Tomlin’s time in Pittsburgh. “There’s no quarterback that’s going to fall to you after Big Ben. You tried to go with all these different guys and it didn’t work out. You drafted Kenny Pickett. All these things that never panned out and you never had the ability to have a top-10 pick or a top-5 pick or the number one overall pick.
“And it’s because of how good of a coach he was. No matter what they had, he was able to coach them to be above .500 all the time”
When Tomlin arrived in Pittsburgh in 2007, he inherited a future Hall of Fame QB in Ben Roethlisberger. The duo found success almost instantly and reached the Super Bowl twice in Tomlin’s first four seasons. However, when it was time to replace Roethlisberger after his retirement, the Steelers used the 20th pick in the 2022 NFL Draft on Kenny Pickett.
When it became clear that Pickett wasn’t the answer at QB, Pittsburgh pivoted to veterans on one-year contracts in Russell Wilson and Aaron Rodgers.
During this time period, even with inconsistent play at quarterback, the Steelers made the playoffs in five of six seasons. The stability to still be a competitive team while still having major questions at quarterback is what prevented the Pittsburgh from bottoming out and securing a high draft pick.
During the Tomlin era, the Steelers picked no higher than 20th in 13 of his 19 seasons and never picked higher than 10th when they traded up to select linebacker Devin Bush in 2019. The Steelers were still able to find gems later in the first round such as Maurkice Pouncey, Cam Heyward and T.J. Watt but also made some first round mistakes including Bush, Pickett and Artie Burns.
The Steelers find themselves in a familiar position this offseason as they hold the 21st overall pick after going 10-7 and losing in the first round of the playoffs in Tomlin’s final season.
Art Rooney II shot down the idea of a rebuild and reiterated that the Steelers want to compete each season but the team’s competitive outlook for the immediate future is murky as questions linger about the quarterback position.
At pick 21, the Steelers won’t be in striking distance of any elite QBs in the draft. Not all elite QBs are taken in the top picks of the draft put more often than not, that’s where the immediate franchise altering players are found.
Perhaps the enduring legacy for the final years of Mike Tomlin’s tenure will be teams that he elevated but were still not good enough to be a true threat and the rosters that needed rebuilt but with no high draft picks to turn to for a quick fix.