Brooke PryorDec 15, 2025, 06:00 AM ETCloseBrooke Pryor is a reporter for NFL Nation at ESPN who has covered the Pittsburgh Steelers since 2019. She previously covered the Kansas City Chiefs for the Kansas City Star and the University of Oklahoma for The Oklahoman.Follow on X
Cam Heyward: We appreciate Mike Tomlin being locked in and consistent (1:19)Steelers defensive tackle Cam Heyward joins Rich Eisen and explains how coach Mike Tomlin’s demeanor hasn’t changed despite the calls for his job. (1:19)
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.
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.”
“I understand my role as a leader to be what my guys need me to be,” Tomlin said days after beating the Ravens. “And certainly when you’re coming off a negative performance, they need stability and belief.”
And it’s that same stability created by routine and transparency that has endeared Tomlin to hundreds of players and kept him entrenched in an organization that mirrors the values of its head coach.
“It’s a very knee-jerk reaction league where if you’re not winning, you’re out,” quarterback 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.
“To be blunt, we don’t care at all,” Steelers wide receiver 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.
“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.”
“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.
“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.”
Now, though, the Steelers enter Monday night’s game coming off a critical win against the Ravens in which Rodgers put together his best game of the season and the defense made timely, splash plays that atoned for inconsistency in the run defense.
“He didn’t get out of character and say, ‘Oh the sky is falling and we have to act completely different,'” said Heyward of Tomlin’s message leading up to the win against the Ravens. “Our message is the same. Get better. Own your mistakes.
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.”
“The end has to come sometime for everyone,” Noll said at the time. “For me, this is it. This is when it happened.”
Until his retirement, Noll had the longest uninterrupted tenure of any active head coach or manager in pro football, baseball, basketball or hockey. Earlier this year, Tomlin became the longest tenured head coach of the four U.S. pro sports leagues when the San Antonio Spurs’ Gregg Popovich retired.
“If there’s one thing athletes, in my personal opinion, don’t like, it’s instability,” Foster said. “And if you’re changing coaches and changing the messaging time and time again, you find yourself almost in just sports purgatory.”
Cowher, who succeeded Noll, stepped down after 15 seasons at the helm of the Steelers franchise, citing a desire to spend more time with his family. He never coached again.
FACING QUESTIONS A year ago after Tomlin’s fifth consecutive one-and-done playoff appearance, team president Art Rooney II pointed to the coach’s track record of success — including never having a losing season — as the reason Tomlin is still the right person for the job.
Tomlin’s record is 190-113-2, and he has won 19 playoff games. He’s just four victories away from eclipsing Noll’s franchise-leading 193 wins.
“On the other side of the coin, you look at the fact that we have six, seven, eight teams a year that turn their coaches over. It’s never a good strategy.”
The other side of the coin could be on the opposite sideline Monday night. Though Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel remains in place for now, Miami owner Stephen Ross fired general manager Chris Grier in what was officially described as a “mutual parting of ways” earlier this season amid a 2-7 start.
Since two-time Super Bowl champ Don Shula retired following the 1995 season, the Dolphins have cycled through 12 head coaches. In the 30 years since Shula, the Dolphins have had just three playoff wins in nine berths along with 12 losing seasons.
Defensive back Jalen Ramsey, who spent a season and a half with the Dolphins before being traded to the Steelers over the summer, understands the difficulty of winning in the postseason more than most. Though he won Super Bowl LVI with the 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.”