'Fire Tomlin': Steelers fans losing patience with Pittsburgh’s long run of mid football

The year that Mike Tomlin took over the head coaching duties of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Tom Brady and the Patriots went undefeated in the regular season and lost the Super Bowl to Eli Manning and David Tyree’s Helmet Catch. Adrian Peterson was the NFL’s Offensive Rookie of the Year, and Randy Moss, Brett Favre and Peyton Manning were in the primes of their careers. George W. Bush was still president, and there was no such thing as a Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Mike Tomlin took charge of the Steelers a long time ago, is what we’re saying. But now, judging from the “Fire Tomlin” chants that resounded throughout Pittsburgh on Sunday afternoon, that union might just be reaching its end.

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By any measure, Tomlin has had a spectacular head-coaching career. A Super Bowl champion, his next win will move him into a tie with Dan Reeves for 10th place on the NFL’s career coaching wins list at 190. His famous, and justly celebrated, streak of never finishing a season below .500 remains intact; the Steelers are 6-6 even after Sunday’s miserable loss to Buffalo.

That woeful 26-7 defeat brought fans’ long-simmering frustrations to a full boil. Chants of “Fire Tomlin” resonated throughout Acrisure Stadium. And these weren’t just a few isolated cranks hopped up on cheap beer. No, these chants were loud:

"I share their frustration tonight,” Tomlin said, when asked about the chants. “We didn’t do enough.”

That’s a fair assessment of Sunday, where the Steelers gained just 166 yards of total offense — 108 in the air, 58 on the ground — and managed to convert only three of nine third-down opportunities. Meanwhile, the Bills set a stadium rushing record of 249 yards over, around and through the Pittsburgh defense.

But “we didn’t do enough” applies to the season as a whole, too … maybe to the entire decade of the 2020s for Pittsburgh. Although Aaron Rodgers’ name isn’t exactly synonymous with Pittsburgh, it was impossible to look at photographs of him after suffering a cut to his nose on Sunday — weary, bleeding, bandaged, gray in his beard and a resigned look in his eyes — and not think of the larger picture, that the best on-field days of both Rodgers and the Steelers are, for now, behind them.

“I totally understand the frustration,” Rodgers said after the game. “That was a boo-worthy performance.”

The Steelers of the 2020s lurk in the NFL’s murky middle — enough name recognition to earn a few nationally televised games, but not enough talent to seize control of the division or the conference. Enough wins to make the playoffs on a regular basis, but too many to get anywhere near a position to draft a reliable quarterback.

Since the retirement of Ben Roethlisberger — whose arrival in Pittsburgh predated even Tomlin’s — the Steelers have cycled through a procession of rent-a-QBs whose performances have ranged from decent to disastrous, with a whole lot more lows and mids than highs. Kenny Pickett, Mitch Trubisky, Russell Wilson, Mason Rudolph, Justin Fields and now Rodgers — all quarterbacks whose best days, whether college or pro, came long before they arrived in Pittsburgh.

One column on one spreadsheet tells the Steelers’ tale. In the “Notes” section of Tomlin’s Pro Football Reference career chart are his full-season accolades — a Super Bowl championship in his second season, an AFC title game in his fourth, and then … nothing since then. A long stretch of emptiness. The Steelers have reached the playoffs four of the past five years, but haven’t won a playoff game since the 2016 season and have only three playoff wins since their Super Bowl run in 2010 when they lost to a 27-year-old QB named Aaron Rodgers.

A coaching change in Pittsburgh would be a seismic civic event akin to tearing down one of the city’s signature bridges. The Steelers have only had three head coaches — Chuck Noll, Bill Cowher and Tomlin — since 1969. Between them, they’ve won six Super Bowl titles, so that’s the baseline for any new hire. Tomlin was just 35 years old when he took over from Cowher, and managed to nab his Lombardi quickly. Could any replacement do the same with this roster?

Tomlin, still just 53, remains under contract through 2027. Should he and/or Pittsburgh decide a fresh start is in order, he’d have a line of suitors waiting at his front door before he got home from his farewell press conference. A whole lot of teams in the NFL would love to have the “problem” of never finishing below .500.

But that’s a hypothetical. The reality is that Pittsburgh has five games remaining — Baltimore twice, Miami, and at Detroit and Cleveland. Pittsburgh remains tied with the Ravens for first place in the AFC North, although on the outside of the playoff bracket due to tiebreakers. (The AFC North’s overall stench means that merely mediocre is enough to lead the division.)

Even if Pittsburgh makes the playoffs, though — by any definition a good season — how long would the Steelers last against, say, the Colts, Chargers or these same Bills? Steelers fans have decided that “good” isn’t good enough. And if the front office feels the same way, some fascinating days are ahead in Pittsburgh.