For starters, this isn’t a “Fire Mike Tomlin” column. For multiple reasons:

I don’t necessarily think he should be fired (although if I was told Mike Vrabel or Ben Johnson would replace him, I’d do it in a heartbeat)
We all know he won’t be fired, so there is no need to yell into a void about something that won’t happen.

So for those reasons, this won’t be a piece calling for the head of Mike Tomlin. It is, however, a doctrine highlighting the consistent late-season struggles, as well as shining the spotlight on his lack of evolution that has put a painfully low ceiling on a once-great franchise.

Late-season collapses

The Pittsburgh Steelers December collapse is something you’ve been able to set your watch to. The Steelers have lost at least three consecutive games in four of the last six seasons, and they’ve done so after Thanksgiving in five of the last seven seasons. In 2018, the Steelers were 7-2-1 and seemingly a lock to go to the playoffs. Instead, they lost three straight to the Broncos, Chargers, and Raiders. They defeated the Patriots to get back to 8-5-1 before dropping their fourth game in five weeks to the Saints. They needed a Browns win over the Ravens in Week 17, as well as a win over Cincinnati. Despite limping to a win over the Jeff Driskel-led Bengals, the Browns lost to Baltimore and the Steelers were left out of the postseason.

In 2019, the Steelers were 8-5 and just one win away from a playoff berth, but finished the year by losing to the Jets, Bills, and Ravens. And while this was the season in which Ben Roethlisberger was lost for the year due to an elbow injury, the loss to the Jets was in a game in which the defense held New York to 16 points and was truly hard to swallow while the loss to Baltimore was with Robert Griffin III at quarterback.

The Steelers started 11-0 in 2020, and proceeded to lose three straight games to the then-Washington Football Team, the Bills, and the Ryan Finley-led Bengals. They defeated the Colts to clinch the division before losing in consecutive weeks to the Browns to go home in the wild card round. Five of their final six games ending in losses was such a letdown, especially when you remember how close the Browns were to defeating the Chiefs in the divisional round. I know we talk about the 2015 loss to Denver or the 2017 loss to the Jaguars as huge missed opportunities, which they were. But 2020 is a massive missed opportunity that doesn’t get brought up enough.

Last season, Pittsburgh was 7-4 and once again looked prime for a playoff spot despite their dreadful quarterback play and offensive play-calling. However, they lost consecutive games to two-win teams at home, as the Cardinals and Patriots beat the Steelers in a matter of five days and then lost to Gardner Minshew and the Colts to fall to 7-7. Only after switching to Mason Rudolph did the Steelers back into the playoffs by winning their final three games and getting help from the Jacksonville Jaguars in the season’s final week as they defeated the Tennessee Titans to get the Steelers into the seventh seed before losing to the Bills in the wild card round.

And then, of course, this season. The Steelers started 10-3 and looked like they could perhaps get to 12 wins if they could just split the final stretch of games. But rather than prove they are a real and serious team, the Steelers have lost their last three games by a combined score of 90-40 with each loss coming by at least 14 points. The consistency of Pittsburgh always falling apart at the most important time of the season is one of the most infuriating tropes of Mike Tomlin-led teams. No matter how impressive the start of the season proves to be, it’s hard to get truly excited because of the disaster stretch that is sure to come.

Lack of coaching tree

Bill Cowher had nine assistant coaches that got head coaching gigs – a pretty solid number and respectable coaching tree.

Mike Tomlin has zero.

And while many people will shrug their shoulders at that and say it’s not the job of a head coach to get other coaches better jobs, those things just happen naturally for good assistants on good staffs. No coach hires a coordinator or position coach with the thought of “Yeah, I can’t wait to lose this guy after he becomes a head coach somewhere else.” They hire them because they are supposed to be good for the job.

Take Dan Campbell for instance – he’s well aware that Ben Johnson will eventually become a head coach at this point. The same can be said for his defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn. But he also has the likes of Mark Brunell and Antwaan Randle El on his staff who can take over at OC because he’s built a hell of a staff. Remember, Ben Johnson wasn’t the original OC – that was Anthony Lynn, who Campbell fired after one season because he realized Lynn wasn’t right for the job. Just for reference, Matt Canada was the Steelers OC for nearly three seasons and Tomlin let Brian Flores go to Minnesota to keep Teryl Austin as his defensive coordinator, a guy who has never succeeded anywhere else routinely fails against the league’s top offenses.

This is one of the biggest qualms with Tomlin. Many believe he surrounds himself with yes-men who aren’t a threat to become head coaches, which would make perfect sense as to why he was totally fine letting Flores go to the Vikings. And while Arthur Smith was a net-positive hire, there’s also no threat there. Say what you want about Cowher, but he hired nine people that would eventually get head coaching jobs and was only a one-and-done in the playoffs twice compared to the seven(!!) time Tomlin has made it to the playoffs without winning a game. Cowher also won a lot of big games with bad quarterbacks, has a better playoff record, more division titles, and more AFC Championship Game appearances. And while the point of this column isn’t to compare Tomlin to Cowher, pointing out Cowher’s success along with his ability to hire great staffs does feel notable and worth pointing out.

Stuck in past

Mike Tomlin’s style of winning doesn’t work in the modern NFL. It isn’t 2008 where you can finish 22nd in total offense and still win a Super Bowl. There are more than two other great quarterback threats in the AFC to overcome. You need to have a guy under center that is capable of taking over games, as well as weapons for him to distribute the ball to. In the latter years of the Roethlisberger era, there was no succession plan. They could have had Jalen Hurts in the second round of the 2020 draft – they took Chase Claypool. They took Kenny Pickett in the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft, and it is one of the worst picks in recent memory by any team. The defense-first mentality has actually hurt the defense more than anything. T.J. Watt, Cam Heyward, Minkah Fitzpatrick – all have been wasted, more or less, because the Steelers have won no games that matter with them because of the lack of firepower offensively. Now, I’ll give Tomlin and Omar Khan credit – they realized Pickett wasn’t good and completely revamped their quarterback room with Russell Wilson and Justin Fields. However, they did nothing at receiver to replace Diontae Johnson, and that has severely limited their offense over the last month with Pickens out. Even with Pickens healthy, there hasn’t been another threat on the boundary to give them a truly dangerous offense. The old school way of thinking is keeping the Steelers in the past, both literally and figuratively as they’re being left behind by the actual great teams and Super Bowl threats of the NFL.

Tomlin is a good coach, but he’s also stuck in his ways, not showing the ability to evolve, and consistently collapses at the most important part of the year. And in doing so, while he raises the floor of the Steelers, he also lowers the ceiling which has kept Pittsburgh trapped in purgatory. And while just about every mainstream radio or TV personality will bang their table and say that some another team would hire Tomlin right away if he and the Steelers ever parted ways, frankly who cares? The 49ers moved on from Jim Harbaugh, stumbled through a couple bad head coaches before landing on Kyle Shanahan and have been to two Super Bowls and are constantly in the NFC Championship Game. And even though attrition finally set in for them this season with injuries, I’m sure fans would trade constant 9 and 10-win seasons for the superb highs of Super Bowl appearances if it means the occasional seven-win season.

Would Tomlin team like the Bears and make them relevant? Almost certainly. And that’s terrific. But that hard ceiling would eventually hit, and those fans would then be having the same conversation we’re having now – craving something different and begging for deep playoff runs rather than being told to be grateful for mediocrity.