As the Pittsburgh Steelers hit the 2024 offseason, it occurs like so many others in the recent past.
• The 2020 offseason followed an 8-8, non-playoff year with questions about how a surgically repaired elbow would impact Ben Roethlisberger at quarterback.
• The 2021 offseason followed a 12-4 year that ended with a double-digit home loss to Cleveland in the first round of the playoffs and with questions about how the Steelers could rework Roethlisberger’s contract to keep him at quarterback.
• The 2022 offseason followed a 9-8 year that ended with another double-digit loss in the first round of the playoffs in Kansas City and with questions about who would replace Roethlisberger at quarterback.
• The 2023 offseason followed a 9-8 year that ended without a playoff berth and with questions about whether Kenny Pickett could handle the starting job at quarterback.
Now, the 2024 offseason begins after a 10-7 campaign that ended with a double-digit loss in the first round of the playoffs in Buffalo and with questions about whether Pickett should really regain the job at starting quarterback.
The same old Steelers’ state of affairs. The same old Steelers debates.
Among them are the questions of how much praise or blame coach Mike Tomlin should receive for steering the team to its 17th straight winning season without losing and how much criticism he should receive for not leading the team to a seventh straight postseason victory.
Mike Greenberg, Kimberly Martin, Jeff Saturday, and Marcus Spears took the typical route that most members of the national media take during an episode of “Get Up!” on ESPN last week. That is to merely brag about Tomlin’s career achievements, downplay the failures of the previous seven seasons, and make fun of anyone in Pittsburgh who has the gall to believe that the Steelers should have achieved more in the thirteen years since the team last made it to the Super Bowl.
That was basically a greatest hits album of overused, low-hanging-fruit, Tomlin-defense cliches.
• If Tomlin leaves the Steelers, he’ll get another job in five minutes.
• If the Steelers let Tomlin leave, who will they get to replace him?
• Because of the mess that is the quarterback position and the poor offensive coordinatorship of Matt Canada, Tomlin should take full credit for any success the Steelers have and bear little responsibility for mistakes.
Naturally, all of that overlooks:
• Whether it makes sense to keep Tomlin in Pittsburgh indefinitely is irrelevant given that he will likely find employment elsewhere soon (see “Reid, Andy” and “Eagles, Philadelphia”).
• The fact that the Steelers were able to get Bill Cowher to replace Chuck Noll and Tomlin himself to replace Cowher.
• That Tomlin hired Canada in 2020, promoted him in 2021, and kept him on the team through the middle of this season; that Tomlin is crucial in building the roster, especially at quarterback.
