Pittsburgh Steelers owner provides interesting Mike Tomlin take, offers little on head coach’s future
Pittsburgh Steelers owner Art Rooney II offered up a whole lot as it relates to his thought process after his team lost in the AFC Wild Card Playoffs earlier this month.
Rooney made it perfectly clear that he still supports long-time head coach Mike Tomlin after rumors surfaced that the two could divorce in the offseason.
“So, still feel good about Mike. Obviously if I didn’t, [we] would make a change, but if we didn’t think Mike was able to lead us to a championship, he wouldn’t be here, and that’s why he is here,” Rooney said, via ESPN.
In the very same breath, Rooney also made it clear that he is not happy with the lack of recent success in the NFL Playoffs. It speaks to the job Tomlin has done and how Pittsburgh has not been viewed as a legitimate Super Bowl contender for the better part of the past decade.
“Certainly, there’s a resolve there and a determination there,” Rooney said of Tomlin. “And I think I said before, I think all of us that have been around for a little while are anxious to take this next step — and getting a little impatient — and we need to see the kind of improvement we all want to see. Mike believes that as firmly as anybody else in the building.”
Pittsburgh has not won a playoff game since all the way back in 2016 when the team ultimately fell to the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship Game. Since then, the team is 0-4 in the playoffs. That’s not acceptable for Rooney or Tomlin.
Mike Tomlin’s future with Pittsburgh Steelers firmly up in the air
Tomlin, 51, indicated in his end-of-season press conference that he expects to sign an extension with the Steelers ahead of the 2024 campaign. Rooney did not go that far on Monday.
“It’ll be done when it gets done,” Rooney said. “Those things are hard to speculate how long it’ll take. At this point, I don’t see it getting done before the [offensive] coordinator’s hired. I think that’s going to happen sooner rather than later.”
Tomlin is entering the final year of his current contract after spending the past 17 seasons as the Steelers’ head coach. It’s a foreign situation for him.
Whether this means that the Super Bowl-winning head coach heads into the 2024 season as a lame duck remains to be seen. While highly unlikely, Rooney’s comments on Monday did very little to change things.
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