Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin is officially three years older than Bill Cowher was when the latter decided to retire from the same job.
After questions swirled about last season about Tomlin potentially stepping away from the NFL, the Super Bowl-winning coach officially decided to return for a mind-boggling 18th season with Steelers.
Yes, it really has been that long since Tomlin assumed command in 2007, winning a Super Bowl a season later, losing one two seasons after that and successfully achieving borderline competency at worse in all the seasons to follow.
Tomlin has never presided over a losing campaign with Pittsburgh, with a handful of 8-8 seasons the worst he’s ever engineered as a head coach. It’d be ridiculous at this point to assume that he’s capable of anything else than that, and it’s probably safe to assume the Steelers will find some way to scrape together a respectable season once more.
However, Tomlin’s team hasn’t won a playoff game since the 2016 season, making it harder and harder to have faith in Pittsburgh’s ability to be anything other than what they’ve been over the last decade. Consistently good, occasionally really good, stuck in place without much sign of growth.
The AFC has moved past the Steelers being one of its juggernauts, as the days of Ben Roethlisberger and the vaunted “Iron Curtain” defense absolutely dominating the conference have been replaced by the heydays of Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen.
The franchise’s lingering inability to replace Roethlisberger looms larger and larger as the years go on, as even Big Ben’s diminished years overshadow what the team has had at quarterback since his 2021 retirement.
The “bullyball” Steelers continue to beat people over the heads with a lunchpail, and that’s not going to change in 2023 with former Atlanta Falcons coach Arthur Smith coming in to call the plays on offense. Pittsburgh has lots of promise for another winning campaign, even with a very tough schedule ahead of it. However, the ceiling continues to get thicker the longer this goes, and it’s fair to wonder if this will be Tomlin’s last run with the Terrible Towels before he follows his predecessor’s footsteps and gets out while the getting is good.
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As of publication, we still have no idea who will start for the Steelers at quarterback this year.
The uncertainty shouldn’t be a shock. Smith’s career as an offensive play caller typically gravitates toward fixer-uppers at quarterback, as he got lucky with the Tennessee Titans to have Ryan Tannehill completely reverse his fortune on the field in 2019 for a couple of really sharp seasons. His 2021 campaign with former Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan was also pretty decent, even if that team was bereft of talent and stuck in the mire of dead cap.
However, Smith is in Pittsburgh right now because of how the position collapsed from under his feet with the Falcons. Trying to revamp Marcus Mariota’s career only got him so far in 2022 before he benched the former first-round pick, and trying to squeeze a franchise starter out of Desmond Ridder led to a mess of musical chairs last fall. Ridder couldn’t stop turning the ball over at the worst moments, and quarterback Taylor Heinicke’s gamer mentality hurt more than help within Smith’s scheme.
Now, Smith will try to find something workable between Russell Wilson and Justin Fields. Can he pull a Tannehill out of a hat this time out?
The odds aren’t in his favor, as Wilson was such an albatross on the Broncos that they swallowed $53 million in dead cap this season just to start over at the position. Fields got traded for a late-round draft pick because of his rocky path with the Chicago Bears, a player with blistering potential masked by unruly inconsistencies.
In reality, Smith will probably work as hard as he did with the Falcons last fall to hide the problems at quarterback to maximize the run game as much as he can.
Running back Najee Harris has rushed for 1,000 yards in all three of his seasons with the Steelers, and he’s now got the most run-friendly play caller of his NFL career. Harris isn’t Derrick Henry or Bijan Robinson, but he should have no trouble getting that fourth 1,000-yard campaign with Smith calling the shots. Running backs Jaylen Warren and Smith’s old Falcons pal Cordarrelle Patterson, plus versatile fullback Connor Heyward, should be in for plenty of ground reps, too.
They’ll have to be for this offense to work. Pittsburgh’s offense this year will live and die by the run game, just as it did in Atlanta for Smith’s past two seasons. There were as many concerns in those years at quarterback for the Falcons as there are for Smith’s Steelers right now, and it’s possible old habits may die hard for the new offensive coordinator. Whether it’s Wilson or Fields, it feels like Pittsburgh will be stuck answering the quarterback problem again in 2025.
The quarterback concerns don’t bode well for a robust passing attack, even if the tight end room is about to see an uptick in targets. George Pickens is a lighting bolt ready to explode for explosive plays, but will he have the quarterback play to get him what he needs?
How will Smith’s offensive line do in paving the way for the run game? Can it keep whatever quarterback upright for 17 games, essential to either keep Wilson healthy or to help Fields find his footing? Questions linger, as Smith tries to revive his reputation as an elite offensive mind.
This will be an old school offense, make no mistake about it. However, how long before the bell rings and people start clearing out the classroom? To differentiate this from any other Steelers offense in the past few years, the gamble to money ball the quarterback position is going to have to pay off. For Smith, it’s more often a risk not worth it in the end.
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Forget about the offense. The Steelers still have the “Iron Curtain” hanging with pride in Pittsburgh, led by perhaps the best defensive line in football and promising strides in both the linebacking group and in the secondary.
Outside linebacker T.J. Watt remains one of the truly elite pass-rushers in the NFL, and he’s flanked by a heck of a Robin in Alex Highsmith. Nick Herbig may also break out at the position this fall as a rotational disruptor. Add in the wily veteran Cameron Heyward, emerging nose tackle Keeanu Benton and the very solid Larry Ogunjobi up front, and you’ve got the makings of a suffocating defensive front that honors the past and terrorizes the present.
Luring linebacker Patrick Queen away from the Baltimore Ravens should help a lot in the middle of the defense after Queen’s breakout 2023, and it’ll be fun to see what range-y rookie linebacker Payton Wilson does on the field.
Cornerback Joey Porter Jr. played like a Pro Bowler last year, and safety Minkah Fitzpatrick remains a problem for offenses. There’s more than enough talent elsewhere on the roster to make this a top-5 defense in the NFL if all goes right and everyone stays healthy. It’s the least of Pittsburgh’s concerns, to be frank.
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The Steelers will probably sneak in the AFC playoffs as a stout seven seed, and we’ll all be praising Tomlin and Smith for finding a way to squeak out nine or 10 wins with a faulty quarterback room. However, it’s all rinse and repeat for Pittsburgh right now until Tomlin decides to call it quits.
Perhaps that’s at the end of 2024, and Pittsburgh will poach Mike Vrabel from the Cleveland Browns staff, equipped with that franchise’s trade secrets, to reunite him with Smith to relive their Titans glory days. Perhaps Tomlin will coach for another 20 years and keep stacking those winning records like Jenga pieces adorned with super glue.
While he’s there, we won’t question this team’s ability to win enough games in the regular season to matter. Until something changes, we’re not sure if this team can really be anything more than what it already is.
