Pittsburgh seems really weird right now.
I can’t make sense of the in-fighting... hard to imagine the QB being the sole reason, but also hard to imagine Tomlin as the problem with as much success as that team has had.
Weird.
I could see a change looming and the Steelers usually go young at Head Coach and build....Tomlin could end up in Houston or Minnesota depending on which team struggles most as to the Steelers, well, IMO, it could be Josh McDaniels or Mike McCarthy, but that's without factoring in any college Head Coaches as Baylor's Matt Rhule could be a dark horse, but I see Rhule in New York with the Giants after 2020.
Here is a confusing article from local newspaper on Steelers resigning Tomlin. Interesting that the Steelers resign their head coaches two years before their contract runs out. So that would be later this summer. The writer says he will get resigned but, then says they may wait a year. Click link to see fan comments. I think most fans would like him gone............Steelers don't change head coaches very often. A bit surprised he has coached as long as he has. I think he stays.
https://www.post-gazette.com/sports...-NFL-contract-Art-Rooney/stories/201905120176
When will the Steelers sign Mike Tomlin to a contract extension?
GERRY DULAC
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
gdulac@post-gazette.com
MAY 12, 2019
3:23 PM
The question is not if the Steelers will sign coach Mike Tomlin to a contract extension, who has two more years left on his existing deal.
The bigger question is when.
And for how much?
But it must be noted that the Steelers did not announce Tomlin’s two-year extension in 2017 until August, so there still is plenty of time to do so. If they choose to do so this season.
It would not be unreasonable or even unthinkable for team owner/president Art Rooney II to wait another year to extend Tomlin, sending a message to all that his coach, like his players, is to be held accountable for the manner in which the past two seasons have ended: Prematurely and abruptly.
In Dallas, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has been non-committal about an extension for coach Jason Garrett, who is in the final year of his deal. The Cowboys won seven of their final nine games in 2018 and made the postseason for the third time in five years, but Jones said in a radio interview in January, “It’s not enough, not enough.”
Barring a change of mind, it appears Jones is going to make Garrett perform for his future with the Cowboys in 2019, a show-me season, if you will. He did that once before with Garrett, after the Cowboys finished 8-8 in 2013. Garrett responded by going 12-4 and leading the Cowboys to the NFC East Division crown in 2014.
Unlike Garrett, Tomlin is not in the final year of his contract. He is good through the 2020 season. But where is the harm in giving him a show-me season, too?
After “cleansing” the locker room of Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell — Tomlin’s word — what better way to incentivize a head coach than to show that he can move on without players of that caliber?
Rooney, though, has another significant contract to address. General manager Kevin Colbert has one more year remaining on his deal, which expires after the 2020 draft. Colbert, 62, has been with the Steelers since 2000, and any decision about his future would appear to be strictly up to him. His success in working with Tomlin and Bill Cowher is unquestioned.
Paul Zeise
Paul Zeise: A Mike Tomlin extension might not be the Steelers' smartest move
NFL teams do not disclose the salaries of their head coaches. It is not like the salaries of NFL players, whose contracts are listed on websites such as Overthecap.com and Spotrac.com. So trying to accurately gauge the salary of a head coach, including Tomlin, can be an inexact process.
When Tomlin signed his most recent extension in 2017, a team source with knowledge of the deal said he wasn’t the highest-paid coach in the league, “but he wasn’t far behind.” At the time, Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll and Asshole Face of the New Orleans Saints were considered the highest-paid coaches at $8 million annually, putting Tomlin somewhere just north of $7 million per year.
Since then, salaries have jumped appreciably.
Jon Gruden received a 10-year, $100 million contract to return to the Oakland Raiders. Carroll signed a new deal with the Seahawks for an estimated $11 million annually. And Baltimore Ravens bench boss John Harbaugh, whose record is not comparable to Tomlin’s, was given a new contract in January worth an estimated $9 million a year.
Tomlin, the third-longest tenured head coach in the league, has more regular-season victories (125) than any coach except New England’s Bill Belichick (261) and Kansas City’s Andy Reid (195). But Tomlin has averaged 10.41 victories in his 12 seasons with the Steelers, nearly identical to Belichick (10.44), who has been a head coach for 25 years, and better than Reid (9.75), who is entering his 21st season.
If he is to remain near the top of his profession financially, Tomlin’s next deal should be somewhere between $9 million and $10 million annually. But, after early endings to the 2017 and 2018 seasons, is the time to extend his contract now? It probably will be, given the Steelers history of coaching stability.
Nobody, though, would blame Rooney if he decided to wait.
Gerry Dulac: gdulac@post-gazette.com.
