Steelers Must End Mike Tomlin and Aaron Rodgers Eras After Embarrassing Home Playoff Loss

Editor's Note: Mike Tomlin resigned as Steelers head coach on Tuesday.

For years, the Pittsburgh Steelers have been the model of consistency. This is a franchise that has had just three head coaches since 1969—Chuck Noll, Bill Cowher and Mike Tomlin. All three won Super Bowls. In his 19 seasons as coach, Tomlin has never had a losing season, including a 10-7 mark and AFC North title in 2025.

However, in recent years that consistency has turned into consistent mediocrity—largely due to a series of temporary band-aids at the quarterback position since Ben Roethlisberger hung up his cleats back in 2021. The latest of those band-aids was 42-year-old Aaron Rodgers, and after watching Rodgers and the Steelers hobble their way to the worst home playoff loss in franchise history in a 30-6 shellacking at the hands of the Houston Texans, an unpleasant truth has become incontrovertible.

A team that has resisted major changes where possible for the entire Super Bowl era badly needs them. If the Steelers want to recapture past glories, the team needs a full-on reset.

And that reset includes a new head coach and quarterback.

For his part, Rodgers was incredulous at the very notion that Tomlin's job could be in jeopardy while addressing the media after the loss.

"This league has changed a lot in my 21 years," Rodgers said. "When you hear a conversation about the Mike Tomlins of the world, Matt LaFleurs of the world, those are just two that I played for. When I first got in the league, there wouldn't be conversation about whether those guys were on the hot seat. But the way that the league is covered now and the way that there's snap decisions and the validity given to the Twitter experts and all the experts on TV now who make it seem like they know what the hell they're talking about, to me that's an absolute joke."

Tell us how you really feel, Aaron.

Tomlin wasn't interested in looking past the beatdown the Steelers had just endured.

"I'm not even in that mindset as I sit here tonight," Tomlin said. "I'm more in the mindset of what transpired in this stadium and certainly what we did and didn't do. Not a big-picture mentality as I sit here tonight. You know, it's not time for talk. We agreed that we'd meet tomorrow and go from there. When you're in this single-elimination tournament, there's not a whole lot to talk about. You win or you go home."

Were this a one-off, their position would be both more understandable and defensible. Rodgers has won a Super Bowl and been named the NFL's Most Valuable Player four times. Tomlin has led the Steelers into the postseason 13 times and taken Pittsburgh to the Super Bowl twice, winning one.

But Monday night's debacle wasn't a one-off. It's not the exception. Where the Steelers are concerned, it has become the rule.

Those Super Bowls Tomlin guided the Steelers to happened in his second and fourth years at the helm, with the most recent a loss to Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl XLV in Dallas.

We're up to Super Bowl LX now, for those keeping track—and that's a lot of Roman numerals between then and now.

AP Foto/Justin Berl

Since then, one of the NFL's most storied franchises has been mired in a pretty sad story. Yes, the Steelers have never had a losing season under Tomlin. But Pittsburgh's last postseason victory came against a Kansas City Chiefs team led by Alex Smith in 2016. Since then, the team has been one-and-done six times. Each of the last five postseason losses have been by double-digits. The last two playoff games in Pittsburgh have both been blowouts.

Tomlin is now a very un-Steelers-like 8-12 in the postseason. Since his last playoff victory, 28 different head coaches have won a postseason game. Four have done so with multiple teams. The hapless Cleveland Browns have won a playoff game more recently than the Steelers.

That win came in Pittsburgh.

Tomlin was the first to admit Monday night that the Steelers just haven't gotten the job done in the postseason of late.

"Words are cheap," he said. "It's about what you do or you don't do. People talk too much in our business. You either do or you don't."

In Tomlin's defense, the team's lack of success finding a successor to Roethlisberger hasn't made things any easier. Rodgers was just the latest attempt to do so, and after 21 professional seasons he acknowledged to reporters that he wasn't sure what the future holds for him.

"I'm not going to make any emotional decisions," Rodgers said. "I'm disappointed. It was such a fun year. Obviously, a lot of adversity, but a lot of fun."

That decision should be made for him.

Again, much like Tomlin's Steelers over the past decade, Rodgers wasn't bad in 2025. He also didn't exactly have a loaded cadre of pass-catchers around him or a stout offensive line in front of him. But Rodgers wasn't great this season—and he hasn't been in several years.

Rodgers was 21st in the league in passing yards per game at 207.6, behind such legends as Tyler Shough of the New Orleans Saints. What passing game Pittsburgh did have was a whole lotta dinking and dunking—in terms of intended air yards per attempt, only Dillon Gabriel of the Browns and Kyler Murray of the Arizona Cardinals averaged less than Rodgers' 6.0.

The Steelers can't challenge defenses down the field. The Texans knew that. And they completely stymied Pittsburgh Monday night. Rodgers may be a first-ballot Hall of Famer, but he's also well past his prime. His last 4,000-yard season came in 2021. And for all the things he has done well, he's just 12-11 in 23 career playoff games.

To be clear, Tomlin is a very good head coach. From all indications, his players would gladly run through a wall for him. Teams with a vacancy at the top will line up to interview him just as they have with John Harbaugh after the Baltimore Ravens decided to move on from their long-time coach. Pittsburgh's lack of success in the postseason isn't solely his fault, either. The Steelers were a flawed team on both sides of the ball in 2025, and while the team is cleaning house, showing general manager Omar Khan the door isn't a bad idea, either.

AP Photo/Matt Durisko

But the Steelers have stagnated. Bogged down. For years the team has resisted the idea of a full-blown rebuild, choosing instead to apply patch after patch in the hopes of winning 10 games and getting to the playoffs. They keep doing both—and then getting waxed in the postseason. The Steelers have been above-average—but no more than that. And if the team busts out the duct tape again, next season won't be a bit different than this one. Or the one that came before it.

Again, this isn't some sort of scathing indictment of Pittsburgh's coach or quarterback. For the latter, it's simply a matter of Father Time being undefeated. In the former's case, Tomlin wouldn't be the only coach whose career with a team has just run its course. The Ravens just decided that Harbaugh's had. The Philadelphia Eagles made a similarly difficult decision with Andy Reid over a decade ago—back when the Steelers were relevant.

If Pittsburgh wants to be again, it's time for the major changes the franchise has been dead-set against for so long. It's time for a long, hard look in the mirror. For the Steelers to ask themselves what they want to be. If it's a 9-11-win team that gets mudstomped in the Wild Card Round, then by all means carry on.

But if the Steelers want to get back to the Super Bowl in the foreseeable future, it's time to hit the reset button—even if it means a year or two of struggles as the team develops a young quarterback.

The status quo isn't working. It hasn't for years. And as Henry Ford reportedly once said, "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got."