By Tim Clark / / Column, Tim's Two Cents
Two

Ding dong the wicked witch is dead.

Some Steelers fans feel that sentiment is accurate. I don’t. But as I’ve been saying for the past three years, a change was necessary in Pittsburgh.

I have never been one to not give Tomlin credit for winning a Super Bowl and getting to another with a roster mostly made up of Bill Cowher’s players. There would have been some coaches that would have screwed that up. Tomlin still had to coach those teams.

Since losing that Super Bowl in 2010, Tomlin’s arrow never pointed upward again. His playoff record is putrid over those 15 years, and that is ultimately what matters in the NFL.

When you tread water for that long, you will eventually drown. Tomlin knew he was drowning and decided to get out of the pool. That is good for the Steelers because the owner —sleepy Art II— was going to kick the can down the road one more year. I don’t much care about his reason, it was time for all parties to separate. I don’t much care how the players feel about it. Isn’t winning Super Bowls the goal rather than having a coach you like to play for? Hold on while I go ask some former Patriots players.

I had two beefs with Tomlin.

The first one is that he never won big with an offense that had a Hall of Fame quarterback(Ben Roethlisberger), the best receiver in the league at the time(Antonio Brown), and a stud running back(Le’Veon Bell). That group was fun to watch, and they did win a lot of games. Regular season games. Their most famous playoff moment was Antonio Brown releasing audio from the locker room as Tomlin ridiculed the Patriots during his pep talk.

My second beef with Tomlin is his coaching tree after 19 years resembles a dead stump. There is no tree. Tomlin hires guys that won’t steal any of the spotlight. Funny how Tomlin went to two Super Bowls with Dick Lebeau as his defensive coordinator and Bruce Arians as his offensive coordinator. The offensive line was never better than when Mike Munchak coached that unit.

No other team wants anything to do with the latest cast of coordinators Tomlin has hired. Keith Butler and Teryl Austin on the defensive side and Randy Fichtner, Matt Canada, and Arthur Smith on the offensive side. Those guys aren’t fit to coach at the high school level. Tomlin seemed to desire that, knowing those guys would keep the spotlight on him.

Losing playoff games with a one armed and one legged Ben Roethlisberger, Mason Rudolph filling in for Kenny Pickett, well past his prime Russell Wilson, and well, well past his prime Aaron Rodgers is not the issue. Tomlin has always been one of the best rally the troops coaches in the business. However, he had to rally the troops because he built a haphazard roster built on a defense that wasn’t all that good at playing defense. Plus, Tomlin wanted Mitch Trubisky. Tomlin was the one that thought Kenny Pickett would be his next franchise quarterback. Heck, he practically begged 42 year old Aaron Rodgers to come to Pittsburgh.

Everything about the Steelers the past five or six years has been stale and extremely uninteresting. They never gave fans hope they could reach the Super Bowl or even win a playoff game. Additionally the offense was boring and predictable no matter the coordinator.

It was time for a change and Tomlin was smart enough to realize it, even if the owner was not. Tomlin will be on your television screen next year happily spitting Tomlinisms. Good for him.

I stated weeks ago, this wasn’t just time but the perfect time. The Steelers host the NFL Draft in April. A new leader with new ideas, a general manager that has mostly made good choices, salary cap space, and quite a bit of draft capital.

Time for a rebuild? Not necessarily.

I would think it is time for some restructuring. Obviously that starts with finding a quarterback. A once thought to be quarterback heavy draft is now suspect. Hiring an offensive mind that can identify talent at the quarterback position could unearth someone in the draft. Maybe a new coach will see something in Will Howard, a guy already on the roster. Sam Darnold is proving there are certainly hidden gems in free agency.

Find a solution at quarterback, bring in at least one more high end receiver, and reconstruct certain areas of the roster and a new coach could find early success in Pittsburgh. Those are a lot of dominoes to fall in place, but again, the Steelers have cap space and draft capital. Also, there are some nice young pieces already on the roster.

The Steelers job brings one more really important selling point. Stability. In the past 56 years, the Steelers have employed only three head coaches. None of them were fired. They all left on their own terms, more or less. That certainly would appeal to many, if not all, prospective coaches.

I would be stunned if the Steelers break trend and hire a veteran head coach. Nobody knew Chuck Noll. Nobody knew Bill Cowher. Nobody knew Mike Tomlin.

 

 

If that holds true forget about some of the names getting interviews like Mike McCarthy and Brian Flores. I would love Flores as defensive coordinator, but not head coach. I think it is more likely that a young guy like Nathan Scheelhasse gets the call.

I would prefer an offensive oriented coach, but if they go with a defensive guy it would be a requirement he bring a big time OC with him. The Steelers have had two straight coaches that were content to win with defense. It was somewhat possible during Cowher’s tenure, and even he lost his share of championship games with that approach. Tomlin proved it isn’t the way to go. You must be able to score points in 2026.

I am a bit nervous because Art Rooney II doesn’t seem to have the same ownership chops as his father did. He seemed more than content to continue finishing in the “mushy middle” and never fully rebuilding. His team is actually in a pretty good spot to avoid rebuilding if he gets this hire right.

Draft capital + salary cap space + the right head coach hire could equal good things in Steeler Country. Who knows, maybe Roger Wood could actually hear his song for more than a week.

Tweet of the Week

CJ Stroud really played poorly in the playoffs. The Steelers left him off the hook, but the Patriots did not. Neither did the internet. I had approximately 568 options for this, but this is my favorite.

 


The Weekly Shiny Penny

Sean McDermott is a class act. Maybe too classy to be an NFL head coach. Unlike Tomlin, McDermott had the class to thank everyone on his way out the door. Much respect.

 

 

A Penny For My Final Thoughts…

A little change up. It turns out I missed my Two Cent Takes. I’m sure you did, too. Even if you didn’t, they are making a comeback. By adding an “s” to Thought, you have my latest iteration of my takes.

 Here are my final thoughts this week on football.

  • Problem #674 with college football: By waiting until January 19(even later next year) to play the championship game, all the juice for the game is gone. I am typing this prior to kickoff, so I hope it’s a good game. However, there is more of a feeling of getting it over with at this point.
  • The rest of college football is focused on portal gains and losses. The game tonight is an afterthought.
  • If college football doesn’t soon make the players employees so they can sign them to binding contracts, the sport will be destroyed.
  • I have been telling you the officiating would soon cost somebody an important game. Enter the Buffalo Bills. Even if you were okay with the catch/interception call, the one sided interference calls were brutal. That is the problem, inconsistency. Nobody knows what a catch is, what interference is, or what unnecessary roughness is. Topping it off is the fact the officials wouldn’t even use replay to double check the catch/interference call.
  • I was scoffed when I said the Steelers should trade all of their draft picks to move up and take Caleb Williams. Scoff at this, the second week in a row Williams made an otherworldly throw in crunch time to give the Bears a chance.

 

  • Last offseason I was scoffed, again, when I suggested the Steelers should prioritize signing Sam Darnold. Well, Darnold just keeps winning and is one game away from a Super Bowl. Meanwhile the Steelers settled for a 42 year old quarterback who is probably hanging out in a cave by now.
  • As I get ready for kickoff tonight, I realize we are going from the brilliance of Aikman/Buck and Collinsworth/Tirico(listen to his call one more time above) to the tired team of Fowler/Herbstreit.
  • Indiana has more fans in Miami’s home joint. Why am I not surprised.
  • How can you not root for Fernando Mendoza over Carson “I graduated two years ago” Beck?
  • Postgame postscript: Indiana just showed more resolve than any team I’ve seen to end the season 16-0 and national champs. Indiana. The Hoosiers were 3-9, hired Curt Cignetti, who warned everyone he would win, and the rest is history.
  • Cignetti is the best coach in the country. He regularly out coaches his opponent. He gets lesser talent to beat better talent. Ohio State, Alabama, Oregon, and Miami were all more talented and all went down to Cignetti.
  • The best thing Cignetti does —and there is a lot to choose from— is gets his kids to realize playing hard all the time often can trump talent. Need evidence? How about the Heisman Trophy winner who always epitomizes Cignetti toughness scoring on this crucial, game altering 4th and 5.

 

The guts to call that play after seeing the Miami defense coupled with the toughness from Mendoza to score is all you need to know about Indiana. This is easily the greatest accomplishment in college football history. 

Just my two cents…