Mike Tomlin became the NFL’s longest-tenured head coach with one team when Bill Belichick and the Patriots parted ways after last season.
Tomlin is now entering his 18th season as Steelers head coach, and with Monday’s news of a three-year contract extension, he’ll soon be in the company of Hall of Famer Chuck Noll, the franchise's winningest head coach.
The new contract ties Tomlin to the Steelers through the 2027 season. If he finishes it out, he’ll have coached the team for 21 seasons. Noll, the Steelers’ head coach from 1969-92, holds the franchise record with 23 seasons.
Noll ended his career with a 209-156-1 record and four Super Bowl titles.
Tomlin has a 173-100-2 career record and one Super Bowl victory. He won a Super Bowl after his second season on the job and led the Steelers to another Super Bowl appearance in his fourth season, but he is just 3-8 in the playoffs since the 2011 season.
Despite the Steelers' recent postseason struggles, team president Art Rooney II still believes Tomlin is the right person to lead them back to success.
“The players still respond to Mike, and that’s No. 1,” Rooney said during his season-ending news conference in January. “He still has the key characteristics that we saw when we hired him. He can keep the attention of a group of 20-year-olds for a whole season and keep them in the fight for the whole way.
“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.”
When NFL owners find coaches who can win, they find ways to keep them. Belichick had been the league’s longest-tenured head coach. He won six Super Bowls in his 24 seasons as New England’s head coach. The longest-tenured head coach with one team is Tom Landry, who spent 29 seasons on the job with the Dallas Cowboys.
The Steelers are famous for having stability at the head coaching position. They’ve had three head coaches since 1969. In between Noll and Tomlin was Bill Cowher, who served on the job from 1992-2006.
This latest contract extension is another sign that the Steelers are pleased with Tomlin’s job performance. It’s his second consecutive three-year extension after signing a series of two-year extensions in the first part of his tenure with the Steelers.
The length of this contract is a show of commitment from the Rooney family after Tomlin led the Steelers to a playoff berth for the third time in the past four seasons. This one, however, came as a surprise after the Steelers were on the brink of playoff elimination in mid-December. A three-game winning streak, led by third-string quarterback Mason Rudolph, earned the Steelers the No. 7 seed in the AFC. They fell to the Bills in an AFC wild-card game in Buffalo.
Tomlin has never had a losing season, but he’s currently in the midst of the franchise’s longest playoff victory drought since the 1970 NFL-AFL merger. The Steelers haven’t won a playoff game since the 2016 season, when they reached the AFC championship game. They are 0-4 in their past four postseason appearances.
“Mike Tomlin’s leadership and commitment to the Steelers have been pivotal to our success during his first 17 years as our head coach,” Rooney said in a prepared statement issued by the team. “Extending his contract for three more years reflects our confidence in his ability to guide the team back to winning playoff games and championships, while continuing our tradition of success.”
The announcement comes the day before the Steelers open their annual minicamp at their UPMC Rooney Sports Complex. The team made several moves over the offseason in hopes of ending its postseason skid. They also hired former Atlanta head coach Arthur Smith as their new offensive coordinator, along with two other offensive assistants, in an effort to jump-start an offense that has been among the worst in the NFL the past few seasons.
The Steelers signed veteran Super Bowl-winning quarterback Russell Wilson to a one-year contract and acquired former first-round quarterback Justin Fields in a trade. They also bolstered their defense by acquiring three new starting defenders, including inside linebacker Patrick Queen, who signed the richest free-agent contract in franchise history in March.
Ray Fittipaldo: rfittipaldo@post-gazette.com and @rayfitt1 on X
First Published: June 10, 2024, 6:45 p.m.
Updated: June 11, 2024, 3:15 p.m.
