If the Steelers blow the AFC North championship and the playoffs by losing at home to Baltimore on Sunday, Mike Tomlin should be fired before he gets off the field.
But it’s more likely that Tomlin will sprint to the office of Art Rooney II and immediately sign a lucrative contract extension.
That would be in the same spirit of DK Metcalf crippling the Steelers’ passing game by getting a two-game suspension for smacking a fan in Detroit, having $45 million in contract guarantees thus voided, and having the guarantees immediately reinstated by the Steelers.
There is zero accountability throughout the Steelers organization.
That’s on the owner. But you can’t fire the owner. “I can handle things! I’m smart, and I want respect!”
This past Sunday’s mind-numbing loss at Cleveland was a tour de force of Steelers ineptitude.
The Steelers came out flat.
That’s a Tomlin trademark. Big games, rotten opponents, crucial situations, any combination thereof, Tomlin teams too often come out flat.
Tomlin apologists bleat that he would have another job five minutes after the Steelers fired him.
That’s easy to say when it never gets tested.
I’m not so sure it’s true anymore.
Sure, Tomlin could get the New York Giants job, where he’d be further exposed as a fraud by an organization even more incompetent than the Steelers.
But no good team would fire their coach just because Tomlin became available. That’s the myth. If it was ever true, it’s not anymore.
It’s boring to dissect the minutiae of Tomlin’s failure. It’s a long list, and his dismissal is absolutely warranted. But it won’t happen.
The current front page is Tomlin losing four straight games at Cleveland to these quarterbacks: Jacoby Brissett, Dorian Thompson-Robinson, Jameis Winston and Shedeur Sanders. It’s like being swept in a best-of-seven series by Duck Hodges.
We’re told that Pittsburgh is lucky to have Tomlin. How lucky did Steelers fans feel after losing at Cleveland?
Aaron Rodgers gets lots of blame for that defeat. The absence of Metcalf duly noted, Rodgers’ arm was scattershot.
He was complaining instead of leading.
The Steelers averaged 5.5 yards per carry on the ground, never trailed by more than one score after the second quarter, but nonetheless threw 39 times against 24 rushing attempts.
Rodgers has totally taken over that offense, and not to good effect. It’s about what he feels comfortable doing, not what works.
Some of what Rodgers feels comfortable doing is odd.
Scotty Miller got seven targets. He’s a scrub and shouldn’t be on the field. But he’s been anointed by the four-time NFL MVP.
Marquez Valdes-Scantling got nine targets, including the last three. He was on the practice squad until Week 15.
It’s hard to imagine Roman Wilson not being better than journeymen like Miller and Valdes-Scantling. But Miller is on the pay-no-mind list because Rodgers knows better.
But what if Rodgers doesn’t?
A postgame sidebar says that the Steelers were more concerned about preventing Myles Garrett from getting a sack, which would have broken T.J. Watt’s single-season record, than they were about winning. Tony Romo conjectured such on CBS, as did Garrett himself after the game.
I wondered the same. But every team uses lots of manpower to block Garrett. Any quarterback is going to throw the ball away with Garrett looming, not least one that’s 42.
I don’t think the Steelers put extra emphasis on stopping Garrett, not beyond what they normally do, and not for Watt’s sake.
But the Garrett narrative is easy to buy because the Steelers are petty.
The fabled “standard” has a low bar these days.
Garrett didn’t get a sack.
Way to go, Steelers.
