There is a sameness to the way the Pittsburgh Steelers keep ending their seasons.
Yet Mike Tomlin shrugged on Tuesday when asked if it feels as if the Steelers are “stuck” after their fifth first-round playoff exit in eight years, all of them embarrassing in their own way.
“Stuck is kind of a helpless feeling,” the NFL's longest-tenured coach said. "And I don’t know that I feel helpless.”
Maybe, but Tomlin also made it a point to not look for silver linings after Pittsburgh's promising start ended with a thud, culminated by a 28-14 beatdown at the hands of Baltimore on Saturday in which the Steelers were never really in the game.
“I definitely don’t feel in the mood for optimism or the selling of optimism,” he said. “I don’t know that that’s appropriate. You know, it’s disappointing not to be working. And so that’s where we are.”
Which is where Pittsburgh has frequently been for most of the past decade: cleaning out its lockers and sifting through the ashes of what went wrong once the calendar flipped to January.
And while changes are certainly coming to the coaching staff — most likely on defense after the Steelers were gashed during a five-game freefall through the standings — Tomlin doesn't appear to be going anywhere as he enters the first season of a three-year extension he signed last June.
Jim Wexell, a publisher and author who writes about the Steelers for 247sports.com, said it makes sense that Tomlin will continue with the team.
"Was this team supposed to make the playoffs with a first year lineman and a 36 year old quarterback and only one weapon on the entire offense?" Wexell asked, rhetorically. "I'm not firing him. And they're not firing him, because they have a brain.
Tomlin believes he's still "capable" of helping Pittsburgh end its longest playoff victory drought since the “Immaculate Reception” more than a half-century ago.
Yet he also finds himself entering a third offseason in four years with questions at quarterback while playing in a conference that is loaded with perennial MVP candidates at the most important position on the field in Kansas City's Patrick Mahomes, Baltimore's Lamar Jackson and Buffalo's Josh Allen, all of whom are still playing.
The Steelers are not. And they only have one quarterback under contract for 2025 after signing former Miami Dolphin Skylar Thompson on Tuesday. Russell Wilson, Justin Fields and Kyle Allen — all of whom played during the 2024 season — are all scheduled to become free agents when the new league year begins in March.
While Wilson and Fields both expressed interest in returning and Tomlin said the team is “open to considering those guys,” there's also the very real chance they begin 2025 with their fifth different Week 1 starter in as many seasons.
"I would like to hear Art Rooney, at his end-of-season review, commit to finding a young franchise quarterback. And in the meantime, I would use Justin Fields as that Band-Aid, that bridge to the next guy," said Wexell.
Though the offense made progress — particularly during a midseason stretch in which Wilson won six of his first seven starts — the Steelers averaged just 14.2 points during their late swoon, hardly good enough to advance to the divisional round or beyond.
A hamstring injury late in the season to wide receiver George Pickens didn't help, neither did Pickens' penchant for picking up fines for infractions incurred during play. Pickens will enter a contract year in 2025 and while Tomlin said it was too early to talk about whether Pickens will get a contract extension, he did allow “there’s certainly obviously more room for growth there.”
Tomlin acknowledged he understands there is discontent growing among the fanbase during what can best be described as his team's “Groundhog Day” era.
“I understand the frustrations,” he said. “And to be quite honest, I share it.”
The 12th-winningest coach in NFL history — he will reach the top 10 if the Steelers win at least eight games in 2025 — doesn't believe his message has lost its effectiveness, in part because he believes that is a small component of his job.
The vast majority is on schematics, preparation and talent development and in those ways he believes the team has evolved.
“I’m open to adaptation and change and have been,” he said. “And so it’s not a new discussion. It’s not like I’ve been doing the same things over (and over)."
Despite the recent playoff failures, Wexell said he doesn't think the culture has changed.
"I was in a locker room in 2000 and almost got punched in the face by [linebacker] Earl Holmes trying to punch [running back] Richard Huntley. All the participants were gone within three years," he reminisced. "It takes special people, and they aren't found easily. I think Mike Tomlin is a special person and is going to keep working at it.”
Pittsburgh's offseason overhaul of its quarterback room last spring offers proof.
Yet in the end all the Steelers did was take a different path to a familiar destination, with Tomlin trying to reckon with another season where the “standard” he talks about ultimately wasn't met, forcing him to give a postmortem that is becoming increasingly repetitive. He has spent a lot of Tuesdays in mid-January this decade trying to come to grips with the abrupt suddenness to the end of a season.
He's running out of ways to describe his disappointment. Tomlin is a firm believer in what he calls “football justice” and he believes his team got what it deserved in the end.
Tomlin remains intent on trying to be a part of the solution in Pittsburgh, saying teams with job openings that might inquire about his willingness to move on should save their time.
Now comes the increasingly hard part: finding a way off the hamster wheel for a franchise that is running in place.
“As uncomfortable as it is," he said. “(there) better be growth in it for us individually and collectively in an effort to make sure 2025 doesn’t end in a similar way.”
WESA's Jeremy Scott contributed to this report.
