When Mike Tomlin stepped down as head coach of the Steelers, there was no press conference and no media tour. There was never an explanation directly from Tomlin as to why he chose, after 19 straight non-losing seasons in Pittsburgh, to move on.
During his NBC debut on Sunday night’s NBA Showtime, Tomlin addressed his decision to move on after nearly two decades with the Steelers.
“There’s a loneliness with leadership,” Tomlin said. “I just thought it was a good time for me, personally, and by that I mean just where I am in life. And I thought it was a good time for the organization to be quite honest with you. We didn’t have a lot of success in the playoffs in recent years, and there’s just some veteran players there, man. Guys like Cam Heyward and T.J. Watt and [Chris] Boswell that I thought just that were worthy of the excitement and the optimism associated with new leadership.”
The Steelers last won a playoff game after the 2016 regular season, during the divisional round in Kansas City. (It was the last Chiefs game before they drafted Patrick Mahomes.) And it’s currently the longest streak the Steelers have had without a postseason win since the franchise’s first ever playoff victory in the Immaculate Reception game from December 1972.
There’s a real question as to whether the Steelers will be better moving forward. It’s entirely possible that Tomlin made the most from a roster that, collectively, hasn’t been good enough to contend at a high level. If so, that pocket of Pittsburgh fans who periodically grumbled about Tomlin may realize that the past 19 years would have been not quite as good without him as they were with him.
And that’s hardly a bouquet for a new NBC teammate. For years, my message to those Steelers fans who wanted to move on from Tomlin has been consistent and clear.
Be careful what you wish for.
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