Steelers stuck with Tomlin and avoided collapses like the Saints and Patriots
There’s always a growing presence of Pittsburgh Steelers fans who believe that Mike Tomlin isn’t a great head coach. That’s always concerned me, as between Tomlin and previous head coach Bill Cowher, Pittsburgh hasn’t had a losing season since 2003.
Reading between the lines, that means Steelers Nation can sometimes be downright, entitled, spoiled brats. This was on display once more as Coach Tomlin made a gutsy decision, at least to outsiders, to start Russell Wilson over Justin Fields as quarterback last Sunday. As it would turn out, Tomlin called his critic’s bluffs similar to that of an online poker game. Although bluffing is a legitimate and often essential strategy in poker, allowing gamers to outplay their opponents, Mike’s naysayers still were proven wrong once again, by a coach who has yet to have a losing season in his 18 years in the NFL.
Since Ben Roethlisberger retired, Tomlin has led his squad to records of 9-8 and 10-7, including a postseason berth. The Wilson/Fields situation got me thinking about how many other teams have had kneejerk reactions following successful pairings of quarterback and head coaches.
Those franchises haven’t been so lucky in their quest to replace great quarterbacks and pulled the trigger on letting their successful coaches go before their teams turned around. Here are a few examples of where the Steelers were smart by sticking with Tomlin, or else their fate may have followed these organizations.
New Orleans Saints
Following four-straight first place finishes in the NFC South and several playoff appearances with near misses towards winning another Super Bowl together, Drew Brees would retire from the NFL, leaving head coach Sean Payton to continue without him.
Payton would last one season, with Jameis Winston as his starter, going 9-8 but missing out on the playoffs.
Payton would retire after the 2021 season, as the Saints moved on, hiring Dennis Allen as their new head coach. Allen has gone 7-10, and 9-8, missing the playoffs in each of the last two years with Andy Dalton and Derek Carr as his top signal callers. Through the 2024 season, Allen’s Saints are 2-5.
Payton moved on to the Denver Broncos in 2023, going 8-9 in his debut season with Russell Wilson and Jarrett Stidham at quarterback. With rookie Box Nix leading his team, the Broncos are off to a 4-3 record thus far in 2024.
New England Patriots
The New England Patriots did the unthinkable by parting ways with Bill Belichick this offseason, following a 24-year stint as head coach that yielded six Super Bowl championships.
However, Belichick’s success waned after Tom Brady left the Patriots to join the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2020. While Brady would go on to win a Super Bowl with the Bucs, Belichick’s teams struggled. The first quarterback to replace Brady would be Cam Newton, who led the Pats to a 7-9 record in 2020.
The Patriots drafted Mac Jones in the first round of the 2021 NFL Draft and would bounce back with a 10-7 record and playoff appearance, losing in their Wild Card matchup against the Tennessee Titans 20-13. The following season New England would finish 8-9 before bottoming out in 2023 with a 4-13 record with Jones, Bailey Zappe, and Brian Hoyer all taking reps under center.
New head coach Jerod Mayo, with Jacoby Brissett and rookie Drake Maye starting at quarterback, have started the 2024 season 1-6.
Denver Broncos
As noted above, the Broncos are currently sailing with Sean Payton as their head coach and rookie Bo Nix as their starting quarterback. Both represent a long search for the proper pairing of coach and QB since the retirement of Hall of Famer Peyton Manning.
Manning’s coach, Gary Kubiak, stepped down after one season post-Peyton and winning a Super Bowl, following a 9-7 finish that saw the team miss the playoffs. Kubiak’s final signal callers were Trevor Siemian and Paxton Lynch. The Broncos would move forward after Kubiak by hiring Vance Joseph, who lasted two seasons with an 11-21 record.
Siemian, Lynch, Brock Osweiler, and Case Keenum would all play under Joseph, who gave way to a three-year stint for Vic Fangio, who would end his tenure with a 19-30 record. Fangio’s Broncos featured Joe Flacco, Drew Lock, Brandon Allen, Jeff Driskel, Brett Rypien, and Teddy Bridgewater as his quarterbacks.
The Broncos, still trying to find the next hot coordinator and quarterback combo to right their sinking ship would hire former Packers OC Nathaniel Hackett, who was promptly fired midway into his first season as the Broncos won four games in 2022. This move coincided with the Russell Wilson trade, in which the Broncos sent draft picks and players to the Seattle Seahawks, while extending Wilson to a milestone contract.
To date, the Broncos are paying Wilson nearly $40 million in dead cap money this season to not play for them, while the team has yet to make the postseason since Manning’s departure.
New York Giants
The fall of another legendary coach and quarterback combination began after their Super Bowl spoils in 2011 when Tom Coughlin and Eli Manning followed up their championship with four-straight non-playoff seasons.
The signing of Ben McAdoo as head coach appeared to be a new beginning for the Giants, who made the playoffs following an 11-5 season, but would lose their Wild Card matchup.
The McAdoo hiring would instead turn out to be a disaster, as the coach was fired halfway through the next season in 2017, which would incidentally also cost GM Jerry Reese his job too. Dave Gettleman would take over his position, hiring Pat Shurmur as his first head coach while beginning to stage the end of Eli Manning’s career by drafting and ushering in the Daniel Jones era.
Manning, who rarely missed a game due to injury in his NFL career, was discarded after a 1-3 start to the 2019 season. Jones, who is still the Giants starter, has a 24-41-1 record since. The Giants are on their second coach since Shurmur (Joe Judge, now Brian Daboll) and Gettleman was replaced with Joe Schoen in 2022.
The grand total: two playoff appearances since their 2011 Super Bowl victory, six head coaches, and two general managers. Ouch.
