Yahoo Sports’ Jason Fitz, NFL writer Frank Schwab and senior NFL reporter Jori Epstein discuss what they see happening with Mike Tomlin after a rough end to the 2024-25 season with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Hear the full conversation on “Inside Coverage” – and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
Is Mike Tomlin gonna be the coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers next year?
I think the answer is yes.
I think first of all, I don’t think the Steelers get rid of him in the sense that I don’t think they’re going to ask him out.
I don’t think they’re going to try to trade him, and I don’t think that they are going to fire him.
Remember, like 3 months ago, people were saying he should be Coach of the Year.
They definitely have regressed to the end of the season.
I also think that there have been other points in Tomlin’s tenure where he’s regressed, and then he’s figured out how to turn it around.
So really the season’s not so different than some of the recent ones.
What’s most different is that he had More success early in the season as opposed to later in the season when he would often claw his way back to not having a losing season and we would all be like, the streak lives on.
There’s such a setup in Pittsburgh that works really well and better than most of the league and might not win a Super Bowl already, although something the other day was like, they’re not winning a Super Bowl with him.
I’m like, they did win a Super Bowl with him.
So I think he’s staying put.
When it comes to Tomlin, I always say this about the Steelers.
Whoever you hire is your next Head coach, if you want Tomlin out, that’s great.
Whoever you hire is your next head coach, there’s like a 95% chance he’s not gonna be as good as Mike Tomlin.
It’s just the truth.
I think he did a great job at the beginning of the year at least with a really, really bad situation at quarterback.
When you take a look at the totality of everything, the Steelers, yeah, it didn’t end pretty, but they went 10 and 7.
So I think Tomlin and the totality did a good job.
It’s just recency biased.
But I will say this, like as somebody who was a good friend of mine, shout out to.
He said maybe Mike Tomlin is Andy Reid.
If we remember Philly Andy Reid, what was the whole deal?
Like, Andy Reid was winning and winning and winning and winning and he just got dumped on all the time because can’t win the big one, can’t win a Super Bowl.
They kind of split.
Andy Reid goes on and becomes a legend, right?
At first, no doubt, first ballot, don’t even need to wait 5 years Hall of Famer in Kansas City.
Philly got it Super Bowl too.
Maybe that’s the Steelers situation here where you just kind of say, We’ve run its course.
And yeah, maybe the next guy we get isn’t gonna be as good as Mike Tomlin, but we, we’re just gonna try something different to see if we can ignite something, whereas Mike Tomlin goes on to the Cowboys or whoever, Raiders or he’d he’d get he’d get a job in 5 minutes if he wanted to.
Like Mike Tomlin’s a future Hall of Famer, probably, that’s what his resume says.
And maybe he becomes Andy Reid, where he goes somewhere else and has great, great success and Super Bowls and reminds everybody, yes, this is really truly an all-time great head coach.
Andy Reid in Kansas City, Pre Mahomes was a lot like Andy Reid in Philadelphia, right?
Like it’s amazing how things change when all of a sudden you get Mahomes.
I I not that Andy Reid was already a great coach, but he became a superstar coach when he had a superstar quarterback.