Bill Belichick Out, Mike Tomlin Earns New NFL Title

Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin is now the most tenured head coach in the entire NFL after the New England Patriots moved on from Bill Belichick. Tomlin’s 17 years are the hallmark of NFL consistency, and John Harbaugh has 16 years with the Ravens. Andy Reid is third, with 11 years in Kansas City.

Yet, Mike Tomlin continues to earn new hallmarks with his level of consistency at the NFL level. He has 17 consecutive non-losing seasons, which is the hallmark of his consistency, but now, he has another level fo that with this mark. Of course, there have continued to be questions about Tomlin with the Steelers and his future in Pittsburgh, with Adam Schefter and Jay Glazer speculating that he could leave.

“They’re not firing Mike Tomlin, but here’s the thing that’s interesting. He’s got a year left on his contract, and there are some people around the league who believe that Mike Tomlin could decide eventually to take some time off like Sean Payton did,” Schefter said. “Maybe take a year off, we’ll see if that’s something that’s on his mind. But Mike Tomlin gets to dictate what happens here, not the Pittsburgh Steelers. They’re not firing him.

“He’s staying on. But he’s staying on if he wants to. If he decides that he’d like to walk, well that’s a different subject. Maybe there’s a team out there, he’s from Washington, his wife loves Los Angeles, maybe one of them wants to lob a call over to the Steelers to see if they could wind up doing something with him”

Meanwhile, Glazer echoed some similar sentiments, that Tomlin will get to decide if he wants to come back. According to Glazer, it will be Tomlin’s ‘choice’ if he wants to return to the team. In July, team president Art Rooney II said to not worry about a new extension, and that it would simply come with time.

“We’ve done the contract at different points and people seem to read more into that than is warranted,” Rooney said to Steelers Nation Radio in July. “The contract will get done when it needs to get done. As Omar said, I expect Mike to be here a lot longer than the existing contract. We’ll get it done when the time comes.”

Tomlin did acknowledge that entering his 17th season as the team’s head coach, he has more years behind him than ahead of him, but at just 51 years old, he still has plenty of energy to continue coaching for quite some time.