{"id":850214,"date":"2026-04-02T23:03:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T23:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/850214\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T23:03:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T23:03:18","slug":"former-steelers-lb-explains-how-mike-tomlin-created-dysfunction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/850214\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Steelers LB Explains How Mike Tomlin ‘Created Dysfunction’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pittsburgh Steelers were one of the best teams of the 2000s, winning two Super Bowls. They got to another championship game to end the decade, but they lost that game, and seasons since then haven\u2019t been as good.<\/a> The Steelers even missed the playoffs in back-to-back years in 2012 and 2013. Former Steelers linebacker Stevenson Sylvester recently explained why he thinks Mike Tomlin is to blame for the team\u2019s \u201cdip\u201d in performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was with the Steelers, we were 12-4 my first two seasons,\u201d Sylvester said on KSL Sports\u2019 YouTube channel.<\/a> \u201cReally good, top two, right next to Tom Brady\u2019s stupid self, in the AFC. Then, my third year, we took a dip. We let go of some veterans. It wasn\u2019t as good as the years before.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I saw, the difference was Mike Tomlin would try to do everybody else\u2019s job. He would try to do the defensive coordinator\u2019s job, the linebacker coach\u2019s job, and it wouldn\u2019t leave time for those guys to do their job. That created dysfunction.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Steelers selected Sylvester in the fifth round of the 2010 draft. He\u2019s correct that they went 12-4 in his first two years, but in 2012, his third year, things were a little worse than he remembers. The Steelers went 8-8, and while they avoided having a losing season, that year was still very disappointing because they started 6-3, only to lose five of their last seven games.<\/p>\n

It was a total collapse, and it was another sign that the Steelers were entering a new era. The Steelers released three franchise cornerstones that offseason in Hines Ward, Aaron Smith, and James Farrior. Their core that won two championships had aged and was starting to fall apart.<\/p>\n

It sounds like Tomlin might\u2019ve started overextending himself as a result. He was still a young coach, but he had a lot of experience, entering his sixth season with the Steelers. Perhaps he felt more confident putting his fingerprints all over the team.<\/p>\n

While Mike Tomlin kept the Steelers successful, that might\u2019ve hurt them too often over the last decade. Several former players have said<\/a> that the Steelers\u2019 defense hasn\u2019t changed much over the years. Tomlin\u2019s background is on that side of the ball, and the team changed defensive coordinators over the years, so that\u2019s likely a knock against him.<\/p>\n

However, Tomlin stepped down this offseason, so the Steelers will look different going forward. He was a good coach, but he had flaws, and change might be the best thing for the Steelers.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pittsburgh Steelers were one of the best teams of the 2000s, winning two Super Bowls. They got…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":850215,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,1255,6,57,116392,691],"class_list":{"0":"post-850214","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-mike-tomlin","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","12":"tag-stevenson-sylvester","13":"tag-trending"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116337613593795743","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=850214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/850215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=850214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=850214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=850214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}