Mike Tomlin stepping away could give the Steelers the reset they need. It'll be easier said than done

Just nine days ago, Mike Tomlin pounded his chest and blew kisses to the camera after Baltimore Ravens kicker Tyler Loop's field goal drifted wide right and the Pittsburgh Steelers had somehow, some way won the AFC North.

Tuesday, he kissed goodbye one of the most remarkable coaching tenures in NFL history, stepping down as Steelers coach after 19 seasons at the helm.

He won a Super Bowl in his second year and made another in his fourth. He made the playoffs 13 times. He won the AFC North eight times. He never had a losing season.

But the Super Bowl victory was back in 2008, and the "no losing seasons" line wore thin -- more easy to begrudgingly accept than to be proud of -- as the playoff failures mounted. Pittsburgh's 30-6 loss to the Houston Texans was emblematic of all that had gone wrong since the Steelers' last postseason win, back in early 2017. The latest veteran stopgap quarterback, Aaron Rodgers, was swallowed whole by Houston's defense. The Pittsburgh defense played admirably, but not to the dominant level of its opponent.

The team, simply, wasn't good enough. It hasn't been good enough for years. Since 2020, the Steelers have played in five wild card games. They have been outscored 179-95 in those five games, the second-worst margin across a five-game wild card span ever. Making the dance might have been nice for a few days until they were overwhelmed on the dance floor, their flaws exposed on the biggest stages.

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Over the last nine seasons, only six teams have more regular-season wins than the Steelers do, but 25 teams have more postseason wins. The Cleveland Browns -- the laughingstock of the NFL for most of the 21st century -- have a playoff win more recently than the Steelers do. Same for the forlorn New York Giants. The Jacksonville Jaguars and the Tennessee Titans have three playoff wins apiece since Pittsburgh's last.

That the Steelers have made so many trips since then shows Tomlin's magic. That they haven't won any of those games shows his limitations. Since Pittsburgh's last playoff win, nine different players have started a game at quarterback. Eight managed to go .500 or better. That's what Tomlin did. He found ways to win. That's generally the best thing a coach can do.

But Tomlin also fell victim to the worst thing a coach can do: fail to change. After Ben Roethlisberger retired in 2022, the Steelers swung and missed on Kenny Pickett in the first round of the NFL Draft, and Tomlin immediately fell back into the comfort of veteran quarterbacks: Justin Fields and Russell Wilson in 2024, Rodgers in 2025. He knew he could survive with players of lesser caliber; could he take a marginal step up with marginally better ones?

Over the past five years, Steelers quarterbacks rank 22nd in expected points added per play, nestled comfortably among the league's mediocre. Pittsburgh won on the margins -- the league's best turnover differential, one of the league's best penalty margins and red zone defenses -- and just kept on keeping on. Pittsburgh 21 wins when outgained were tied for most in the NFL over that span. For the past decade, one could comfortably pencil in the Steelers for 8-10 wins, watch them play four months of mediocre football, and see them produce ... 8-10 wins.

It was comfortable until the truth became uncomfortable: that the status quo wasn't aligned with championship aspirations. The Steelers might have said they were playing for titles, but the roster (and especially the quarterback choices), over and over again, said otherwise

Now things get really uncomfortable. Change, naturally, is uncomfortable, especially for a flagship franchise. Pittsburgh has had just three coaches in the last half-century plus: Chuck Noll from 1969-91, Bill Cowher from 1992-2006 and Tomlin from 2007-25. Cowher and Tomlin delivered playoff trips in their first season and Super Bowl trips not long thereafter.

Tomlin's successor might not be able to do the same, and that might be a good thing in the long run.

The Steelers were the NFL's oldest team. Their quarterback turned 42 during this season. Their three Pro Bowlers are 36 (Cameron Heyward), 31 (Jalen Ramsey) and 31 (T.J. Watt). Their misses in the NFL Draft at key positions -- quarterback and wide receiver in particular -- left them scrambling, and Tomlin could scramble with the very best of 'em. But the constant papering over got exposed come playoff time again and again.

In order to escape this cycle, the Steelers must be comfortable with the uncomfortable. Comfortable in *gasp* a step back or maybe even *gasp* their first losing record since 2003.

There's a quote attributed to businessman N.R. Narayana Murthy that goes: "Growth is painful. Change is painful. But, nothing is as painful as staying stuck where you do not belong."

The last nine years weren't where the Steelers belong. Steelers fans shouldn't be tucking away their Terrible Towels for the offseason in early January, wondering which underwhelming quarterback might be able to get them back to the playoffs. This is a franchise built on championships. Or at least it was, before the past half-decade.

It might take some time, but an earnest attempt to build a title contender is preferable to a half-hearted attempt to build a playoff contender. The Steelers aren't completely barren in the "young cornerstone pieces" department, but the young core needs significant reinforcements and upgrades. The Steelers needs another pass-catching weapon opposite DK Metcalf. They need additions in the secondary around Joey Porter Jr. They need to continue to develop what youngsters they do have in the trenches.

And most importantly, they need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable at quarterback, a la when Cowher selected Roethlisberger 11th overall in 2004. There was no guarantee it would work out -- a burly quarterback from Miami of Ohio making the jump to a win-now team. Tomlin infamously never developed a succession plan for life after Roethlisberger and, in turn, never fielded a championship-caliber team after Roethlisberger retired.

It's a new world for one of the NFL's most stable organizations. Tomlin brought stability, toughness and discipline, all descriptors of the high-floor operation he ran.

And don't take that for granted. When every other team in the NFL dipped into losing seasons, Tomlin kept churning out winners. He adapted. He overcame. He led. There's honor in that. But there's also honor in striving for greater, even if it takes a while to get there.

And by "a while," we mean it might take years. It might take multiple coaches and multiple quarterbacks. The New England Patriots swung and missed on a coach (Jerod Mayo) and a quarterback (Mac Jones) at the end of the Bill Belichick era before getting it right with Mike Vrabel and Drake Maye. The Kansas City Chiefs had to take a big and uncomfortable swing on Patrick Mahomes. Same for the Buffalo Bills and Josh Allen. Fittingly, the Steelers' biggest rival, the Ravens, are also departing from a good-but-not-good-enough status quo of John Harbaugh and jumping into the unknown the same year Tomlin is leaving the Steelers. 

The Steelers are far from adding a seventh Lombardi Trophy. They're far from finding a definitive answer at the game's most important decision. They don't have a second-round pick this season, and for the first time in nearly two decades, they don't even have a coach. Hiring a coach as good as Tomlin will be no easy task. The Steelers might get it wrong. In fact, there's a good chance they will get it wrong.

But they also have a chance to get it right, as they did with their past three coaching hires. A chance to blaze a different path, one that may have more twists and turns and stops and starts than any Tomlin season did. A chance to finally get unstuck.