The Infinite Tomlin

Welcome to another installment of Down the Stretch, which is obviously just TankWatch for better teams, and also something of a kiss of death. (We’ve covered the Colts and Eagles so far this year.) This week’s subject: the enigmatic Pittsburgh Steelers. Sorry.

ESPN insider Adam Schefter reported last week that the Mike Tomlin era in Pittsburgh is approaching a crossroads.

The Steelers must decide to pick up the 2027 option year in Tomlin’s contract by March 1st of 2026. Per Schefter, “There will be organizational meetings and decisions that occur but not until after this season, with a full body of work for all appropriate parties to review, sources said.”

That’s hardly a Super-Bowl-or-pinkslip ultimatum. In fact, the report would be a nothingburger, if not for its very existence.

Insiders like Schefter serve many masters. They don’t idly muse aloud about coaches’ contracts. Someone powerful wanted Schefter to send a public message of dissatisfaction with Tomlin. Perhaps that message was a balm for the Steelers fans who chanted Fire Tomlin! during the loss to the Bills. Perhaps it was aimed at the long-tenured head coach himself, thinking he might need a little kick in his complacency.

While someone Rooney-like cleared his throat to Schefter, Aaron Rodgers invited some Steelers skill-position players to his home for a film session last Tuesday. Receiver Ben Skowronek brought a decorated cake. A chorus of wide receivers, running backs and tight ends – lots of tight ends, probably – sang to their quarterback.

Tuesday was Rodgers’ 42nd birthday, you see.

Based on how much benefit-of-the-doubt you have left for Rodgers, the birthday bash was either an example of his gritty commitment to excellence or the saddest Norma-Desmond-meets-Michael-Scott story ever told. Or perhaps it is both: a lonely eccentric with nothing left to live for but his work, and also his marriage to an anime hologram a 100% real human who is possibly named Brittini and was apparently not present on his birthday.

Tomlin and Rodgers hushed their hecklers, if only briefly, by doing what they do best in Week 14 against the Ravens. Rodgers, defiant and determined (and wearing a modified cast on his injured left wrist) threw for 284 yards, threw one touchdown and scrambled one sprightly yard for another. The rest of Tomlin’s Steelers turtled up and waited for the Ravens to beat themselves. Rodgers, a thick-skinned warrior who totally tunes out the noise, took time out from his busy social calendar to say “I told you so.”

The Steelers are now 7-6 and on pace to win the AFC North. Yet the best thing that can be said about them – the best thing that could be said of them for much of the last decade – is that they are better than the NFL’s bad teams and rarely beat themselves. Those are worthy benchmarks for a new coach and a young quarterback, not a coach in his 19th season and a living legend whose career overlaps with those of Doug Flutie and Deion Sanders.

The Steelers managed to avoid becoming shuffling extras in the background of the Rodgers saga for six months. But they could not manage to avoid becoming the Steelers: a team that has institutionalized its reduced expectations and often collapses beneath the weight of its own delusions down the stretch. The Ravens win was swell, but we have a whole body of work to review.

The Pittsburgh Steelers Story So Far

Sometime in the late 2010s, the Steelers stopped trying to win Super Bowls and lowered the bar to competing for “non-losing seasons” instead.

The 2017 playoff loss to the Blake Bortles-led Jaguars, coming at the end of a 13-3 season, may have broken the Steelers. Behind the scenes, veterans like Roethlisberger, Brown, Le’Veon Bell and James Harrison were already turning training camp into a rumpus room, setting the stage for getting out of the playoffs by a punchline from The Good Place.

I used to visit Steelers training camp frequently in the mid-2010s. Roethlisberger sometimes conducted 7-on-7’s in an untucked tee shirt. Brown might perform for the crowd one day – shagging punts while already holding five footballs – then jog onto the field 45 minutes late the next. Harrison, always dealing with some unspecified injury (and sent to the Patriots during the 2017 season) roamed the fringes of the Latrobe practice facility like a cryptid. Mike Tomlin treated his superstars like grown-up professionals. They treated him like the cool shop teacher who lets them build water bongs.

The Steelers went 2-4 down the stretch in 2018, missing the playoffs. Brown went AWOL from the team late in the season.

Bell held out for a year, eventually signing with the Jets and disappearing from the face of the earth. Brown left to pursue a second career as an actual supervillain. Roethlisberger suffered a severe elbow injury two games into the 2019 season. Mason Rudolph and the unforgettable Duck Hodges led the Steelers to an 8-5 record before the bottom fell out of the offense in a season-ending three-game losing streak.

Stars gone. Franchise quarterback old and hurt. Late-season losing streak. Institutional control … not great. Time to clean house, right?

Nah. Roethlisberger returned as a wobbly dink-and-dunk specialist. He led the 2020 Steelers to an 11-0 start full of one-score victories over the Drew Lock/Jeff Driskel Broncos, Garrett Gilbert Cowboys and Robert Griffin/Trace McSorley Ravens. The Steelers went 1-4 when their luck ran out down the stretch, then lost to the Browns – THE BROWNS – in the playoffs.

Talk about your wakeup calls! Why, Eagles fans would take the ignominy of a 1-4 finish and a playoff debacle (the Browns led 35-10 at halftime) to their graves. It was definitely time to at least overhaul the coaching staff and find a successor to Roethlisberger. Right? Please?

Nope. The Steelers promoted offensive coordinator Matt Canada from within to replace longtime Tomlin loyalist Randy Fichtner, then drafted a running back.

Roethlisberger’s flesh began rotting away from his reanimated corpse in 2021. Yet the Steelers tumbled into the playoffs at 9-7-1 thanks to a Week 18 overtime victory against the Snoop Huntley-led Ravens.

The 2021 season was framed as a gritty success. This is about when the “non-losing season” meme broke containment and the Steelers began earning bespoke participation trophies for not sucking.

The Steelers finally relented and spent the 20th pick in the 2022 draft on Kenny Pickett, a hometown college hero and cardboard cutout of a pocket passer. The organization spent one-and-two-thirds seasons marketing Pickett as a fierce locker-room leader and heady game manager with a gift for fourth-quarter comebacks against Will Levis and John Browning. By the end, even Pickett himself did not believe a word of it. Rudolph pulled the Steelers out of 1-4 freefall late in the 2023 season, beating (sigh) the Lamar-less Ravens in yet another close game to clinch a playoff hammering at the hands of the Bills.

Enter Russell Wilson and Justin Fields, plus outsider artist/offensive coordinator Arthur Smith. The 2024 season brought more narrow wins, more beatings of dreadful teams, more wishful thinking about the offense and an 0-4 finish, followed by a playoff drubbing by the fully-Lamar’ed-and-operational-for-once Ravens.

The Steelers did not finally start remodeling, though they changed some upholstery. They traded for talented, mercurial deep threat DK Metcalf. Then they traded away talented, mercurial deep threat George Pickens. Aging big-name defensive back Minkah Fitzpatrick was traded to the Dolphins for aging big-name defensive back Jalen Ramsey.

While the Steelers paddled their boat in circles, Aaron Rodgers wandered lonesome beaches and participated in probably-real nuptials. The Steelers went through the draft and most of OTAs with Rudolph as their official QB1.

Rodgers finally signed on June 7th. Smith, an eccentric gazillionaire’s son who believes in an offense of the tight ends, by the tight ends and for the tight ends, customized the playbook equivalent of a nursing-home bathroom for Rodgers.

Once the season began, Rodgers followed in the footsteps of everyone from Zombieberger to Pickett to Fields/Russ by leading narrow victories over third-rate (Jets, Browns) and still-gestating (Week 3 Patriots) opponents.

Rodgers suffered a fractured left wrist against the Bengals. The Rudolph-led Steelers lost to the Bears. Rodgers got knocked out of the Bills loss upon his return (though he returned for a while). Sunday’s Ravens win found the Steelers in a familiar place: just above .500, reliant on a geezer quarterback’s residual magic, and poised to get pummelled in the playoffs by a team with higher aspirations.

Leadership Structure

Mike Tomlin is an American institution with recognizable brand identity, like McDonalds or Walmart.

Tomlin has well-known strengths (roster/ego management, player development, late-and-close tactics) and weaknesses (fierce loyalty to assistants, an arch-conservative overall philosophy). Tomlin’s brand of football can be wearying and dissatisfying, but there’s a great deal to be said for reliable quality control. Those golden arches can look pretty good when you pull off the interstate after six hours on the road; that Walmart sign is reassuring when seeking diapers at 3 AM.

Offensive coordinator Arthur Smith deserves some grudging respect for being his weird-ass self in a league that rewards strategic conformity and punishes experimentation. Put Smith in the Missouri Valley Conference, and his Zillions o’ Tight Ends system would win a dozen FCS titles. Smith’s fetish for flooding the field with seven-to-nine 280-plus pound men yields diminishing returns, but it’s risk-averse and forces opponents to face the Steelers on Smith’s terms. And Smith, unlike predecessor Matt Canada, at least HAS a recognizable philosophy.

Speaking of recognizable philosophies: Omar Khan spent over 20 years in the Steelers organization before replacing Kevin Colbert as general manager in 2022. Colbert took over football operations in 2000. The Colbert/Khan Steelers are generally frugal in free agency and will let second-tier starters walk to save money. They excel at finding high-upside prospects on the defensive front and receivers capable of having a few good years before going cuckoonanners. They can be generous with core players, but they usually wait until a contract’s final year to open renegotiations, which often leads to drama.

This offseason’s flurry of trades and signings was atypical, which may be why the Steelers themselves appeared to be a little dizzy and disoriented when they were making them.

Art Rooney II assumed principal ownership of the Steelers upon the death of his father Dan Rooney in 2017. Art Rooney’s namesake grandfather founded the franchise in 1933. The Rooneys have long reveled in their Grand Old Guardians of the Game status. Never ask where their money came from.

The Rooney family’s football philosophies are indistinguishable from the Colbert/Khan and Tomlin philosophies after decades of org-chart hegemony. Then again, decades of org-chart hegemony in itself represents a unique football philosophy in the 21st century.

Quarterback Situation

What’s remarkable about the Aaron Rodgers experiment is that we’re experiencing one of the best possible outcomes.

Rodgers avoided injury until mid-November. He kept his Mad Tyrant Pricklipants personality under wraps for months, no doubt with the help of Tomlin and a tiny, compliant press pool. The offense has been grody but semi-functional; the Steelers passing game under Rodgers has been less dire than the 2015 Broncos under Peyton Manning, the 2022 Colts under Matt Ryan, or even the 2021 Steelers under Zombieberger.

That’s not to say that things are going great, of course. It’s just that this was the best the Steelers could have reasonably hoped for.

The Steelers’ Average Throw Depth, per Sports Info Solutions, is 5.8 through Week 14: the only figure in their database below 6.0, dating back to 2015. Rodgers’ Average Throw Depth is 5.9. The only other quarterback with a figure under 6.0 in over 300 attempts in the last decade was Tua Tagovailoa (5.7) in 2024. And yes, that includes those deep shots against the Ravens.

Rodgers appears to still have about 80% of his peak arm strength and a deft deep touch. But he is stuck in an offense designed to protect him at all costs.

Entering Week 14, Rodgers had attempted 42 passes from three-tight-end personnel; only Matthew Stafford had attempted more. Rodgers had attempted 25 passes with a sixth offensive lineman on the field; only Jacoby Brissett had attempted more. Meanwhile, Rodgers had only attempted 117 passes from three-receiver packages: 33rd in the NFL, behind spot starters Davis Mills and Carson Wentz.

All the jumbo packages and short passes have kept Rodgers from facing much pressure: he has just 114 dropbacks under pressure through Week 14. That’s good news, because Rodgers’ completion rate under pressure of 44.6% ranks 30th in the NFL. Pro Football Reference charged Rodgers with just 14 throwaways, a middle-of-the-pack figure, but Rodgers’ low-percentage throws in the general direction of covered receivers – usually punctuated by his inimitable scowl – don’t count as “throwaways.”

Rodgers looked like he was rushing throws before the wrist injury; it now sometimes looks like he just took the football out of a pizza oven. His off-platform throws on the move look like they were fired from a Nerf cannon. Rodgers is surviving on his high-level abilities to spot presnap tendencies, exploit mismatches and anticipate coverages. If the Steelers face the Texans in the playoffs, Rodgers’ health insurance provider might drop him.

As for Rodgers personality politics: he has started flipping the bird to photojournalists and blaming his receivers in press conferences. Injury information now filters through the Rodgers Agitprop Network. Rodgers clearly forced his way back into the lineup against the Bills and nearly paid the price for it. Packers and Jets fans can warn yinzers that the Steelers a late-season losing streak will inevitably result in an insider “tell all” about any dirty laundry Rodgers feels like revealing to his media stenographers.

Longtime Steelers backup Mason Rudolph can usually be counted upon for replacement-level play but often looks lost in Smith’s loopy elder-proofed offense.

What’s Going Right

The Steelers, unlike their AFC North foes, have avoided both serious injury plagues and WTF losses. The latter, again, is a Tomlin staple. Beyond that:

• D.K. Metcalf has been outstanding: 52 catches, 753 yards, 5 touchdowns. Metcalf arrived as a well-established sideline deep threat, but he has also been a sharp underneath route runner and occasional YAC generator this season.
• Kenneth Gainwell has also been an asset as a stalwart of the backfield committee: 371 rushing yards, 286 receiving yards, six touchdowns, and lots of Zero Air Inch passes turned into productive gains.
• The Steelers offense ranks seventh in the NFL with a 64.1% touchdown rate on red-zone trips. Their defense ranks seventh-best in the league with a 52.1% touchdown rate allowed on red-zone trips. These are mixed-blessing stats, because the Steelers offense and defense perform much better in the red zone than everywhere else, and regression favors the “everywhere else.”
• Nick Herbig is the latest Pro Bowl-caliber edge rusher to roll off an assembly line that has cranked them out for decades. Herbig has 6.5 sacks and (per Sports Info Solutions) 43 pressures. He has picked up some of the slack left by Alex Highsmith’s midseason injury and T.J. Watt appearing to lose a quarter-step.
• Chris Boswell is 7-of-8 on 50-plus yard field goals. Boswell is 41-of-48 on 50-plus yard field goals over the last five seasons.

Trouble Spots

The Steelers rank in the bottom half of the league in the following categories:

Yards per game: 284.5, 27th

Yards per play: 5.2, 21st

Yards allowed per game: 369.3, 28th

Yards allowed per play: 5.4, 18th

Yards per rush: 3.87, 23rd

Yards per pass: 6.41, 18th

Yards allowed per rush: 4.39, 18th

Third-down percentage allowed: 43.2%, 27th

You get the idea. It’s hard to find the Steelers among the top 10 in any meaningful category, which is why we spotlighted their red-zone rates earlier. This is simply not the statistical profile of a top-tier playoff contender. Furthermore:

• The Steelers have allowed (311) more points than they have scored (308).
• Opponents have outscored the Steelers 191-to-139 in second halves.
• The Steelers rank dead last in the NFL in time of possession at 26 minutes and 58 seconds.
• Calvin Austin, ostensibly the WR2, has caught just 29 passes for 309 yards and two touchdowns. Adam Thielen, who spent training camp with the Panthers and the early season with the Vikings, played 25 snaps and caught a four-yard pass in Week 14. I refuse to dignify the Marquez Valdes-Scantling acquisition with a wisecrack.
• Even the pass rush has been average at best: a 6.8% sack rate (16th), a 20.0% pressure rate (19th) per Pro Football Reference.

Future Schedule

The Steelers host the Dolphins, who are somehow still in the Wild Card race, next Monday night. Then they visit the Lions and Browns. It’s likely that they will be 9-7 when they host the Ravens in Week 18.

As mentioned earlier, the Steelers defeated the Ravens in Week 18 in 2021 and 2023. Lamar Jackson was injured in the first of those games and resting for the playoffs in the second. Jackson was also resting in 2019, when Robert Griffin outdueled Duck Hodges in Week 18. The Steelers have built much of their reputation in the 2020s upon catching the Ravens at either their worst or good-enough-to-rest-starters best late in the year.

Real Playoff Outlook

The Steelers’ playoff probabilities through Week 14, as determined by the DVOA analysis at FTN Fantasy:

To reach the playoffs: 75.7%

To win the AFC North: 73.9%

To reach the AFC Championship: 14.6%

To reach the Super Bowl: 5.6%

To win the Super Bowl: 1.5%

All of these figures are adjusted for both Daniel Jones’ injury and the return of Joe Burrow to the Bengals; the latter is more slightly more important to the Steelers, as the Ravens visit the Burrow Bengals next Sunday.

The general upheaval in the AFC standings is a mixed blessing for the Steelers. On one hand, there may be some deeply-flawed teams like the Chargers or what’s left of the Colts in the Wild Card pool. On the other, the Bills now have a 39.5% chance of earning the top Wild Card berth, which would likely send them to Pittsburgh in the first round. Not exactly an easy draw.

Bottom Line

Mike Tomlin is an excellent football coach.

If the Steelers fire Tomlin in January, he would quickly turn a franchise like the Titans around. If the Eagles or some other contender really fires their head coach in a fit of pique, Tomlin’s hard shell and creamy interior would make him an ideal replacement: fans would be placated by his no-nonsense demeanor; pressure-cooked veterans would (initially) welcome his superstar-friendly behind-the-scenes approach.

Tomlin has been on the job in Pittsburgh for nearly two decades, however. Leaders who remain in place too long in any industry stagnate. Employees have heard the pep talks and learned the shortcuts. Strengths become optimized and reach the point of diminishing returns, while weaknesses metastasize and fester. Organizations (sports and otherwise) end up rationalizing and internalizing leadership quirks if the boss stays in power too long. Continuity, stability and tradition become excuses to resist necessary, healthy changes.

Many yinzers dig the whole “no losing seasons” routine. It’s gratifying to root for a team that doesn’t follow fads or ride the mood swings of some manchild owner. The Steelers’ commitment to continuity jibes with the team’s (and fans’) working-class self-identity.

I would be more charitable of the Steelers’ whole Tradition of Heritage shtick if it wasn’t such unadulterated bullshit. Tomlin’s Steelers aren’t gritty overachievers. They’re slackers who faded down the stretch in 2024, 2020, 2019 and 2018, and are in real danger of doing it again this year. The organization has been grasping at straws at quarterback since Roethlisberger started duct-taping himself together. The Steelers have lost to teams-of-the-era (Chiefs-Bills-Ravens) and one-year wonders (Browns, Jaguars) in the playoffs since their last postseason victory after the 2016 season. They’ve slumbered through one changing-of-the-guard atop the AFC power structure and may be hitting the snooze button on a second while the Patriots and Broncos return from the wilderness.

This is not determination. It’s deterioration.

And what’s the next step? Kyler Murray, smothered by Arthur Smith’s burly bodyguards, leading the 2026 Steelers despite a gimpy foot and carpal joystick syndrome? Another self-congratulatory victory lap for kinda-sorta overcoming purpose-built adversity and “silencing” critics by doing exactly what the critics said they would do?

Probably. Tomlin won’t be fired at the end of the season. Nor will Khan or Smith. The Egg McMuffins will remain under the heat lamps, the Walmart shelves stocked with familiar disappointments. The Steelers will frame themselves as old-school throwbacks. They’re really just the Cowboys in an ironic bowling shirt. Their fans deserve better, and may be surprised to discover how much they might like something different.