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Brooke Pryor
PITTSBURGH — Even though Mike Tomlin, the man who coined the Pittsburgh Steelers organizational creed of «the standard is the standard,» left the franchise after 19 seasons, team president Art Rooney II said his expectation for the next head coach remains the same.
«The standard is to try to compete to win a championship every year,» Rooney said Wednesday, one day after Tomlin’s resignation as Steelers coach.
Rooney, 73, rebuffed the idea that he would tolerate a rebuild as the franchise installs just its fourth head coach since 1969.
When asked whether the Steelers would consider overhauling the current roster and entering a «rebuild» phase, Rooney responded that he doesn’t «like that word,» and added that he is «not sure why you waste a year of your life not trying to contend.»
«I’m not going to say, ‘Well, we’re going to take a couple of years to figure this out and then we’ll try to compete,'» Rooney said. «I think you try every year. Some years you have the horses to really get there. Some years you don’t, but you try every year, in my view.»
Rooney said he will lead the search along with general manager Omar Khan. Rooney’s son Dan, currently the Steelers’ vice president of business development and strategy, was also in the room for Wednesday’s news conference, sitting alongside Khan in the front of the room.
Aaron Rodgers-led Green Bay Packers team. He never went back.
Bill Cowher, who preceded Tomlin and coached the Steelers for 15 seasons, went 11-5 after being hired in 1992, and Pittsburgh earned a Super Bowl berth in his fourth season. Cowher’s first losing season came in 1998, when the Steelers went 7-9 and followed it up with a 6-10 season. Cowher rebounded, though, and won the Super Bowl in 2005, his penultimate season.
Chuck Noll, who started the Steelers’ unprecedent stretch of head coach stability, went 1-13 in his first season when he inherited a 2-11-1 team following Bill Austin’s dismissal. Noll posted three consecutive losing seasons, but he went on to become the architect of the most prosperous era in Steelers football with four Super Bowl titles in six seasons.
Each of Pittsburgh’s previous three coaches were young defensive assistants plucked from relative anonymity for the Steelers job. Rooney, who was the team president and involved in Tomlin’s hiring along with his father and Steelers chairman Dan Rooney, said he wasn’t necessarily looking to fit that prototype this time around.
«I don’t want to sort of put any real parameters around it,» Rooney said. «We’re going to be an open book in terms of who we look for and the list that we build.
«So yeah, could I sign up for another Chuck Noll or another Bill Cowher or another Mike Tomlin? Sure. Somebody that we feel fits that mold would be great, but for now we’re not going to narrow the box too much.»
Sources told ESPN’s Adam Schefter later Wednesday that the Steelers have requested head coach interviews with a pair of current assistants with the Los Angeles Rams — defensive coordinator Chris Shula and passing game coordinator Nate Scheelhaase.
The next head coach will also likely be tasked with helping to find the Steelers’ next starting quarterback. Rooney said he believed Tomlin’s decision would affect the future of Rodgers, who signed a one-year deal with the Steelers prior to the 2025 season.
«Aaron came here to play for Mike, so I think it would most likely affect his decision.»
Rooney admitted he wasn’t surprised when Tomlin informed him Tuesday of his decision to walk away, and he didn’t try to talk him out of it.
«When you’re going into 18, 19 years of a career like this, he said it himself, he knows it’s not going to go forever,» Rooney said. «So I mean, I think I knew, I think we all knew that we were getting toward the end.»
Rooney said Tomlin told him he would be resigning in a brief meeting late Tuesday morning prior to informing the team in their afternoon meeting.
Though Rooney didn’t detail specifics behind Tomlin’s decision to walk away, he said he believed it was more «family-related» than «football-related,» and he didn’t believe Tomlin would be returning to coach in the «near future.»
