Paul Zeise: Mike Tomlin's Steelers era should be remembered fondly, but it had to end now

Paul Zeise, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Jan 13, 2026

Published in Football

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PITTSBURGH — Mike Tomlin’s time with the Steelers was one of the more complicated coaching stories that I can remember, and now it is over after Tomlin stepped down as the coach of the Steelers on Tuesday in the wake of the team’s season-ending loss to the Texans.

Tomlin was one of the more steady and consistent coaches in NFL history. We liked to mock the fact that he never had a losing season, but in 19 years, that’s an incredible achievement.

Tomlin led the Steelers to two Super Bowls and one championship. He led them to eight division titles and to the playoffs 13 times. Tomlin was a winner, sporting a .628 winning percentage. He is 10th in the NFL in all-time wins and 26th in all-time winning percentage.

He made the playoffs three of the last four years and five of the last six and did so despite having to transition from a Hall of Famer in Ben Roethlisberger at quarterback to a cavalcade of journeymen, failed rookies and washed-up veterans.

The Steelers never bottomed out after Roethlisberger and were kept afloat under Tomlin’s watch. They were always competitive.

Those are all the arguments Tomlin’s supporters and fans pointed to when there was criticism of him from any corner. They claimed his critics didn’t give him enough credit for winning as much he did and that his players loved him and wanted to play for him more than any coach in the NFL.

But the rest of the story suggests that Tomlin had lost his fastball and hasn’t had it for some time.

The Steelers haven’t won a playoff game in nine years. It is the longest stretch without a playoff win for the Steelers in their history. They have lost seven consecutive playoff games, and in most of them, they were never really competitive. Tomlin may never have had a losing record in any regular season, but he has a losing record in the postseason (8-12).

In many ways, his career with the Steelers can be divided into two chapters.

The first four seasons he was on his way to becoming an all-time great, as the Steelers were 43-21, won two AFC North titles, two AFC title games and one Super Bowl. He looked like he was on his way to winning multiple Super Bowls, especially with a young franchise QB in place.

Tomlin was 5-1 in his first six playoff games, but he has been 3-11 since. He has won a total of three playoff games since 2010, and two of them came in one season.

One of the criticisms of Tomlin, which got louder as the playoff losses mounted, is that he won with Bill Cowher’s team. He still had to coach the team and make the right decisions, but the team was largely built under Cowher and was a Super Bowl roster that he inherited.

Regardless of what you think about Tomlin and where you stand, it is clear he had a great run with the Steelers and fans should appreciate him more as they reflect back on his time. Sure, the postseason success wasn’t what it should have been, but he brought a lot of great memories and memorable wins, especially in games against the Ravens, Bengals and Browns.

Tomlin will bounce back if he wants to, or maybe he will follow Cowher’s lead and go make millions in television for the rest of his career. I don’t see him doing that because he is a football coach at heart, but anything is possible. I assume he will get hired by some other team and then be able to show that he is actually the coach his record suggests he is.

I have always argued that Tomlin has benefitted from the Steelers as much as they benefitted from having him. He is a good coach, but the Steelers organization is one of the best in the league and has a structure that is set up for a coach to succeed.

And that’s why I believe the Steelers will be fine, too. One of the strongest arguments to keep Tomlin, especially among his media fans and supporters, is that he is a good coach and “be careful what you wish for.”

Well, the idea you can’t move on from a good coach and replace him with a good or even better coach is silly. And the Steelers, who have had three coaches since 1969, have a pretty good track record of picking coaches.

Tuesday marked the end of an era of Steelers football, one that was incredible but one that needed to come to a close. The divorce had to happen for both sides to move forward, and both sides will land on their feet.

Tomlin can walk away head held high and he should be remembered for all the great things he brought over 19 seasons. But his negatives had begun to outweigh his positives. The standard set by the Steelers had slipped, and it didn’t seem like there was any path under Tomlin for the franchise to get back to being elite.

The mounting playoff losses, the continued reliance on flawed rosters and the inability to adjust and change all caught up to Tomlin. And that’s not to mention the often poor choices in coaching decisions that seemed to hold the Steelers back schematically under his watch.

It was absolutely time, and now the Steelers need to get to work at what’s next.