Brooke Pryor and Jeremy Fowler<\/a>, a coaching source provided some insight into what Tomlin told Steelers players upon stepping down, noting that Tomlin said, “I’m not interested in coaching anyone else’s team right now.”<\/p>\nSteelers long snapper Christian Kuntz confirmed that message, saying: “He did make a point to tell us he was stepping down and he had no intentions on coaching any other guys but the guys he was looking at.”<\/p>\n
Another source told Pryor and Fowler that while “a few” teams reached out to Tomlin to gauge his interest in coaching next season, it was “made clear” that Tomlin does not plan to coach in 2026.<\/p>\n
Tomlin enjoyed an unprecedented run of success in that the Steelers never finished with worse than a .500 record during his 19 years at the helm.<\/p>\n
Overall, Pittsburgh went 193-114-2 under Tomlin with 13 playoff appearances, eight AFC North titles, two Super Bowl appearances and one Super Bowl win.<\/p>\n
The Steelers reached the playoffs in each of the past three seasons and five of the past six, but they haven’t won a playoff game since 2016, which suggests things may have stagnated.<\/p>\n
A coaching source discussed Tomlin’s mindset with Pryor and Fowler, suggesting that at least one year away from coaching could allow him to return refreshed and refocused.<\/p>\n
“He talks a lot about ‘getting off the couch,’ coaches who leave the game for a reset and return with new ideas, as ‘different versions’ of themselves,” the source said. “He studies ball because he loves it, so I could see him returning in that way. I’m just not sure when, and it could be a while. It seems like he really just needs a break.”<\/p>\n
Sean Payton essentially did what the source alluded to, and that decision has paid dividends thus far.<\/p>\n
After enjoying great success as head coach of the New Orleans Saints for 15 seasons, including winning a Super Bowl, Payton stepped down and didn’t coach in 2022.<\/p>\n
In 2023, his rights were traded to the Denver Broncos, and he has now led them to the playoffs in back-to-back seasons, plus they are the No. 1 seed in the AFC this season.<\/p>\n
While there is no guarantee Tomlin will return to coaching in the near future or at all, it does appear that following a path similar to that of Payton is a legitimate possibility.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On the heels of Mike Tomlin stepping down as head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers after 19 seasons,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[49,48,514,82],"class_list":["post-413869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}