Mark Madden: Steelers’ commitment to Mike Tomlin makes no sense

The Steelers signed coach Mike Tomlin to a three-year contract extension on Monday. It runs through 2027.

I’m not angry, because it was inevitable.

I’m just dumbfounded. Because everybody says that retaining Tomlin is the obvious and correct move. But I don’t see one good reason to do so.

When Tomlin is evaluated, he somehow takes winning out of the equation. In a results-based business. That’s incredible.

Besides the ancient history of salad days spent succeeding with Bill Cowher’s roster, the only tangible thing Tomlin has going for him is never having a losing season.

He’s got plenty of intangibles, though.

The players love playing for Coach T. Maybe too much. Nobody ever points out that the emperor has no clothes.

Heck, standout Dallas linebacker Micah Parsons fairly fantasized about playing for Tomlin. It was like coaching porn.

National media like Rich Eisen, Mike Greenberg, etc., tell us repeatedly that Tomlin is great, and anyone who thinks otherwise is an idiot. Local media says the same. (In public, anyway.)

So, Tomlin is great, and that’s that. It’s a lie that’s been spoken into truth despite the flimsiest of evidence. It’s not unlike worshiping a supreme being.

But Tomlin hasn’t won a playoff game in seven years.

He has three postseason wins in 13 years.

He has one AFC North championship in six years. That season, 2020, the Steelers lost five of their last six, including their wild-card playoff game at home to Cleveland. They trailed 28-0 after one quarter.

Twenty-three NFL teams have postseason victories more recently than the Steelers.

Tomlin wasted Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell, allowing the former to significantly damage the Steelers’ culture.

Tomlin is wasting Minkah Fitzpatrick, Cam Heyward and T.J. Watt.

Tomlin wasted a lot of Ben Roethlisberger. He’s generally underachieved given his resources.

Tomlin has no coaching tree. His staff is inferior. He’s run off superior football minds like Bruce Arians and Dick LeBeau.

Tomlin’s approach is antiquated. The current Steelers will try to be the That ’70s Team: Pound the ball on the ground, play elite defense. Except that’s not Franco and Rocky in the backfield, their defense isn’t elite, and this is 2024. You need to score more, and faster.

Tomlin pushed to draft Kenny Pickett in the first round in 2022, presided over his failure, then escaped blame when Pickett departed. “It was Matt Canada’s fault!” Maybe, but Tomlin hired Canada, promoted him to offensive coordinator and employed him far too long.

Mistakes abound. Look at how Tomlin is mangling left tackle. The Steelers have picked tackles in the first round of the last two drafts. Instead of doing the obvious, Tomlin is sticking with incumbent Dan Moore Jr. at left tackle. Who stinks by every metric and will leave via free agency at season’s end.

Will that benefit the Steelers in Week 1? Maybe, maybe not. But Tomlin’s thought process never looks past the next game. He refuses to consider the big picture.

But Tomlin is great. Everybody says so. The results don’t matter. It’s utterly remarkable.

I think Tomlin is a complete fraud. I don’t trust one word he says. He’s gloated about misleading the media, after all.

But I’m wrong. Tomlin is great.

Much of Tomlin’s cachet comes from being the NFL’s preeminent Black coach. But it’s not why he won’t ever get canned.

Tomlin’s employment by the Steelers is guaranteed because the Steelers don’t fire head coaches: They’ve had just three since Chuck Noll was hired in 1969. That’s how daddy and grandaddy did it. The Steelers want stability, even if the consistency produced by said stability resides in the mushy middle.

A host of great coaches have been fired by NFL teams: Bill Belichick, Andy Reid and Mike Shanahan, to name just a few.

Tomlin won’t be.

Conventional wisdom holds that if Tomlin were ever available, he’d have another job in five minutes.

That could be true, but that gig might be in TV.

Belichick sought a coaching job after parting ways with New England and didn’t get hired. NFL teams would look closely at Tomlin’s resume before signing him up. That resume isn’t great, not recently.

It’s said the Steelers couldn’t do better than Tomlin. But over the last seven seasons, doing better wouldn’t require much.

But the undeserved adulation will never stop.

Tomlin won’t deserve to make the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but he will. That will be the ultimate heap of steaming horse dung.

Owner Art Rooney II called Tomlin “pivotal to our success” upon announcing his contract extension.

Success? What success? None recent, that’s for sure.

It’s like the devil convincing the world he didn’t exist. Nobody takes a hard look at Tomlin’s results.