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Brooke Pryor
THE FIRST CHANTS calling for coach Mike Tomlin’s job started with 10 minutes and 16 seconds left in the fourth quarter of the Week 13 loss to the Buffalo Bills, as Kenneth Gainwell’s two-yard loss on fourth down sent the Pittsburgh Steelers offense jogging off their home field after yet another fruitless possession.
Seven days later, the 53-year-old coach blew a kiss to the camera in the wake of a 27-22 Week 14 victory as a Baltimore crowd, discontent with its own coach, silently streamed out of M&T Bank Stadium.
Though the Steelers (7-6) enter Monday night’s game against the Miami Dolphins (8:20 p.m. ET, ESPN) atop the AFC North standings and return to the same home field where those chants happened, it has been that kind of roller-coaster season for Tomlin and the Steelers — at least on the outside.
Internally, however, multiple players, coaches and staffers describe a steady, normal operation, the kind that has been in place over the past 19 years with Tomlin at the helm.
«There’s no panic in the building,» one source told ESPN NFL insider Jeremy Fowler. «That’s how weeks like [Week 14] pay off. The people there [including owner Art Rooney II] aren’t on social media. It’s business-like there. Mike identifies what the problem is and he digs into the film with his staff to fix it. It’s really that simple.»
Aaron Rodgers, who has a unique perspective from his time in Green Bay and with the New York Jets, said this week. «And they’ve won here for a long time. There’s been some 8-8 seasons as well, but — doesn’t seem like it from afar — there wasn’t any, ‘We had to make wholesale changes.’
«I’m a firm believer that if you choose the right people to lead, and you have the right process, you don’t have to make changes. … Because for the most part, it leads to rebuilding or dysfunction that can kind of break some of the foundational characteristics of winning organizations like the Steelers are.»
But while that stability is viewed as an asset inside the building, it’s also a major contributor to the fan angst that audibly boiled over two weeks ago. Fans didn’t just chant «Fire Tomlin» because they were frustrated with their team’s position in the game; they were frustrated with the team’s seemingly unchanged position in the NFL over the past decade.
Though he has never had a losing season and won Super Bowl XLIII in his second season in 2008, Tomlin hasn’t won a playoff game since beating an Alex Smith-led Kansas City Chiefs team in the divisional round of the 2016 playoffs. A week later, the Steelers got blown out by the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship Game. The Steelers haven’t come close to a conference championship weekend since. Instead, they were one-and-done in five postseason appearances over the past eight seasons, and they were outscored 101-52 in their past three wild-card losses.
Calvin Austin III said. «We’re always behind Coach T. The whole world could be chanting ‘Fire Coach T,’ and we’re going to be with Coach T. At the end of the day, that’s all that matters. The players in this locker room, we’re behind him.»
ONLY TWO ACTIVE Steelers players have won playoff games under Tomlin: Cameron Heyward and Chris Boswell.
Since that 2016 divisional win, the Steelers have several notable regular seasons with no playoff success to show for it. In 2017, Antonio Brown led the league in receiving yards as the defense ranked fifth in yards allowed (306.9) and the offense ranked third in total yards (377.9). Yet, the Steelers were stunned by the Jacksonville Jaguars in a wild-card shootout. A year later, Ben Roethlisberger led the league in passing yards (5,129) and the defense led the league with 52 sacks. But the Steelers finished 9-6 as Le’Veon Bell held out the entire season and Brown imploded.
Chris Boswell and Cameron Heyward are the only two active Steelers players who have won playoff games under coach Mike Tomlin.
• Heyward saw action in the team’s wild-card win against the Cincinnati Bengals in the 2015 playoffs, but a year later, he was sidelined with a torn pectoral muscle and missed the 2016 postseason and the Steelers’ most recent playoff win.
• Boswell, though, was responsible for all 18 points with six field goals in the Steelers’ 18-16 divisional win against the Kansas City Chiefs.
«Winning a championship is as hard as hell,» said Foster, who played in eight playoff games after losing in Super Bowl XLV. «I went in my second year, and after that game when the confetti was flowing and I was going to the losing locker room, I said, ‘I’ll be back.’ I never went back. … It ain’t as easy as it seems.»
The seven years of playoff futility since the loss to the Jaguars have largely been marked by remarkable defenses and inconsistency at the quarterback position: Roethlisberger’s season-ending right elbow injury, his return and then retirement, first-rounder Kenny Pickett’s disappointing tenure and the failed Russell Wilson and Justin Fields experiments.
Tomlin’s messaging and drive, though, were constants.
«I don’t know if you’ll find a more pure football coach when it comes down to understanding what’s at task, what the tasks are, and pushing us players to do it,» Foster said. «… He never undersold anybody. Does each coach have their flaws? Absolutely. And Coach T has his too, but the intent on his goals always remained the same, and that’s winning a damn Super Bowl.»
This offseason, in a charge led by Tomlin and general manager Omar Khan, the Steelers courted and eventually landed Rodgers in a bid to change their postseason fortunes. The typically conservative organization also made uncharacteristic moves, spending money and draft picks to land wide receiver DK Metcalf and noteworthy, yet aging, defensive players in defensive back Jalen Ramsey and cornerback Darius Slay.
The defense, one Tomlin boasted could be capable of «historic things» during a training camp radio interview, fell woefully short of expectations as the 2025 season opened. Even so, the Rodgers-led offense put up enough points to help the Steelers to a 4-1 start.
And the defense Tomlin handpicked to match up with Cincinnati Bengals receivers Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins surrendered 33 points to a Joe Flacco-led offense in a Thursday night Week 7 loss. Ten days later, in another prime-time game, the unit gave up 35 points in a loss to the Green Bay Packers at Acrisure Stadium.
Just as the unit started to show improvement, Rodgers began to look every bit of his 41 years with a dismal performance in a Sunday night Week 10 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers. A week later he fractured his left wrist against the Bengals and was on the sideline for the Week 12 loss to the Chicago Bears. He was ineffective in his return against the Bills, prompting boobirds that preceded the fourth-quarter «Fire Tomlin» chants. Following the loss to the Bills, former players including Roethlisberger and pass rusher James Harrison suggested the organization should consider moving on from Tomlin.
«Maybe it’s a clean-house time. Maybe it’s time,» Roethlisberger said on his «Footbahlin with Ben Roethlisberger» podcast. «I like Coach Tomlin. I have a lot of respect for Coach Tomlin, but maybe it’s best for him, too.»
And Harrison, who played under Tomlin for parts of 10 seasons in Pittsburgh, said that «something has to be done.»
«I have never been a person that thought Coach Tomlin was a great coach,» Harrison said on his «Deebo and Joe» podcast. «I thought he was a good [coach]. … A good coach gets you to play to your potential. And right now, the players we have on that team I have seen play; they’re not playing up to their potential. A great coach gets you to play to your potential.»
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The Steelers have had just three head coaches since 1969 — the fewest number of head coaches in that span of any franchise across the NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL. The Steelers’ previous two head coaches left on their own terms as both Bill Cowher and Chuck Noll opted for retirement after lengthy runs with the team.
The Rooney family last fired a head coach in 1968, dismissing Bill Austin after three seasons when he won just two games in 1968. Even then, Art Rooney, who was in charge of the organization at the time, was reluctant to fire Austin because Austin got along so well with those in the franchise.
«The only problem that we’ve had is that we didn’t win enough ball games,» Art Rooney Sr. said at the time. Until the organization found stability beginning with Noll’s hire in 1969, the Steelers went through 15 coaching changes beginning with the organization’s inception in 1933.
Noll led the Steelers for 23 seasons before announcing his retirement in December 1991. He transformed a team that went 1-13 in his first season in 1969 to a four-time Super Bowl-winning team in the 1970s. But he finished his tenure with just one playoff berth and four losing seasons in his final seven seasons. His last playoff win came in the 1989 wild-card round in an overtime victory against the Houston Oilers.
Following a 5-11 season and last-place finish in the division in 1988, Noll fired four assistants, and then-defensive coordinator Tony Dungy resigned. At the time, Dan Rooney, who took over as the team president in 1975, reaffirmed his faith in his longtime head coach.
«I am pleased that Chuck Noll will continue as our head coach and remain with the Steelers until he retires from football,» he said in a prepared statement in January 1989. «He has done a great job for the Steelers and has represented the city well. I have much confidence in his ability to lead this team back to the top.»
Los Angeles Rams, he has been part of just four playoff teams in nine previous seasons, including once with the Dolphins.
«This is my 10th year in the league,» Ramsey said. «I’ve been to the playoffs, maybe three, four times. Only had playoff wins, maybe twice? It’s tough. It’s the NFL. Any type of success you can get, though, you cling onto it. Me, personally, I thought the chants were bullshit. That’s comical in my mind.»
To this point, the Rooneys have seemingly shared Ramsey’s sentiments, opting to cling to Tomlin’s past success with the belief it will continue in the future rather than pivot to the unknown — no matter how loud the noise gets.
ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler contributed to this story.
