{"id":334531,"date":"2025-12-07T06:16:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T06:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/334531\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T06:16:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T06:16:07","slug":"the-steelers-handling-of-head-coaches-has-morphed-into-mythology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/334531\/","title":{"rendered":"The Steelers’ handling of head coaches has morphed into mythology"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many believe the Steelers won\u2019t fire Mike Tomlin because the Steelers don\u2019t fire coaches. That habit has morphed in recent days into mythology.<\/p>\n

Some have insisted that the Steelers have never fired a head coach. On Saturday, Adam Schefter of ESPN.com made this assertion: \u201cthe organization hasn\u2019t fired a head coach since 1941<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here are the facts. The Steelers had nine coaching changes after 1941 and before the hiring of Chuck Noll in 1968. Several of those coaches were in fact fired.<\/p>\n

Bill Austin, who preceded Noll, was fired after the 1968 season<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mike Nixon, who preceded Austin, was fired after the 1965 season<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Walt Kiesling, the man who said \u201cno thanks\u201d to local product John Unitas, was fired after the 1956 season<\/a>.<\/p>\n

John Michelosen, who held the job for four years, was fired after the 1951 season<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jim Leonard, who coached the team in 1945, publicly resigned before he could be fired<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s four firings and one \u201cyou can\u2019t fire me, I quit\u201d from 1945 through 1968.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s Noll, who \u201cretired\u201d at the age of 59 after 23 years with the team. It\u2019s not known what would have happened if he had insisted on staying for a 24th year, but it was clearly getting closer and closer to an involuntary end for Noll in Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n

Before Noll, the Steelers\u2019 revolving door spun as rapidly as anyone\u2019s. They\u2019ve had incredible stability for 56 years. But let\u2019s not make it into something it isn\u2019t, as some sort of proof positive that owner Art Rooney II won\u2019t ever fire a coach. <\/p>\n

Before Noll, the Steelers fired plenty of coaches. And if Rooney resists what he otherwise believes is a necessary change for both the team and for coach Mike Tomlin so that the Steelers won\u2019t lose their \u201cnever fire coaches\u201d vibe, that would make the organization every bit as dysfunctional as the teams that seemingly fire coaches every other year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Many believe the Steelers won\u2019t fire Mike Tomlin because the Steelers don\u2019t fire coaches. That habit has morphed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-334531","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-nfl","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}