Mike Tomlin’s Pittsburgh Steelers tenure ended abruptly in mid-January when he stepped down after another season without a playoff win. While Tomlin later said that he felt like it was time for a change, it was still shocking to see him leave the Steelers. Tomlin became a victim of his own success, though. Fans became frustrated with him, seeing his streak of non-losing seasons as a hindrance.
Analyst Charles Davis doesn’t understand why Tomlin gets flak for that, though.
“Pittsburgh said, ‘We are not just tanking to get a draft pick. We want to be competitive every year,’” Davis said recently on The Daily Flock podcast. “That became an albatross on Mike Tomlin. ‘He’s never had a losing season. If I hear that one more time, I’m gonna lose my mind.’ It became a negative. It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Davis makes a fair point. What was Tomlin supposed to do, lose games? He did the best with what he had, and many franchises would kill to have a head coach bring them a Super Bowl title and almost 20 straight non-losing seasons.
However, the Steelers’ standard is higher than just winning in the regular season. They’re expected to compete for championships. There comes a point where just making the playoffs isn’t good enough. Tomlin’s Steelers were coming up 10 years without a postseason victory, with many of those losses being ugly, too. That’s not good enough for Pittsburgh.
Still, Davis doesn’t think it’s fair to say that Tomlin’s team always got crushed in playoff losses over the past decade, using last year’s game against the Houston Texans as an example.
“Last year broke my heart for this reason. That was a 7-6 game in the fourth quarter against Houston. It turned into a [30-6] game,” he said. “Once again, ‘Mike Tomlin can’t beat anybody. In the first round, we get killed.’ It was a good time for him to exit because he wasn’t able to break through on that one. I totally got it. But that one killed me because that wasn’t really accurate. It was a 7-6 ball game. They were right there.”
Yes, the Steelers showed more fight against the Texans than they did in other recent playoff games. However, NFL games are four quarters. The Steelers didn’t score a touchdown against the Texans, and they collapsed in the fourth quarter. There’s no award for a team being competitive for three quarters before getting steamrolled.
Should Tomlin have gotten as much criticism as he did for winning? No, but he’s right that it was time for a change. The Steelers were stuck in a rut with Tomlin. Now, Mike McCarthy is Pittsburgh’s head coach. We’ll see if he makes a huge difference, or if the Steelers will be mediocre without Tomlin, too.