The Pittsburgh Steelers and Mike Tomlin have agreed to a three-year extension on his current contract, which means the Steelers’ longtime head coach is under contract through the 2027 season. Tomlin was scheduled to enter the last year of his deal in 2024, but team president Art Rooney II made it all but a certainty that Tomlin would receive an extension at some point.
“It’ll be done when it gets done,” Rooney said at the NFL Owner’s Meetings. “Those things, hard to speculate how long it’ll take. At this point, I don’t see it getting done before the coordinator is hired. I think that’s going to happen sooner rather than later.”
The big knock on Mike Tomlin remains the lack of a playoff victory since 2016. Rooney added extra urgency this offseason when he stated that the team was ‘tired’ of that stat being thrown around. However, Rooney remains steadfast in saying that Tomlin is the man for the job. Since joining the team in 2007 as their head coach, Tomlin has yet to have a losing season.
“The players still respond to Mike and that’s No. 1,” Rooney said. “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 the whole way. Still feel good about Mike. Obviously, if I didn’t, we’d make change. If we didn’t think Mike was able to lead us to a championship, he wouldn’t be here. That’s why he’s here.”
Tomlin boasts a career record 173-100-2 and is tied for the 11th most coaching wins in NFL history. This will be his 18th season coaching the team, and he has already virtually ensured that he will be enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame at this point in his career.
Now, Tomlin’s biggest challenging will be adapting to the new on the offensive side of the football. The Steelers have three new quarterbacks, a new offensive coordinator, and multiple other pieces they have shuffled around the deck. If the team wants to break its playoff drought in 2024, Tomlin will have to maneuver that ship.