By Dale Lolley for Steelers.com
Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin not only understands the frustration of fans over the team’s early exit from the 2024 postseason, he shares the sentiment.
The Steelers were defeated, 28-14, last Saturday in the Wild Card playoffs by the Baltimore Ravens at M&T Bank Stadium, ending their season. And the process of sifting through what went right, and, perhaps more importantly, what went wrong, has now begun.
“There’s football justice. You get what you deserve,” Tomlin said Tuesday at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex in his final press conference for the 2024 season. “We’re here and we’re here for really tangible reasons.
“We didn’t evolve in the right ways. We didn’t strike the right chords at the right time particularly down the stretch so we’ve been eliminated from the single-elimination tournament. For us, it’s about assessing the reasons why, doing an assessment of every component of what it is we do here in the manner in which we do it, but we’re at the very infancy of that. It comes to a screeching halt in this business and those of us that have been in it for a long time kind of understand that, but we also understand that moving forward happens pretty quickly.”
Assessing the situation and making the necessary changes is part of the process.
The Steelers began the season 10-3, but saw things fall apart down the stretch, starting with a three-game stretch in 11 days in which they played Philadelphia, Baltimore and Kansas City, all three of which are among the final eight teams standing in the NFL postseason.
Though they have earned a spot in the playoffs in three of the past four seasons, they’ve been beaten by Kansas City (2021), Buffalo (2023) and Baltimore in the opening round of each of those seasons.
Tomlin thought this season’s team was better positioned to compete with the NFL’s top teams, and the Steelers did go 4-3 against playoff teams and 2-3 against teams still alive in the postseason with wins over the Ravens and Commanders.
But they didn’t win in the postseason, and that’s all that matters to Tomlin, who expressed disappointment in that fact.
“A component of that disappointment is I thought this collective was better positioned, maybe more so than in recent years to not be in this similar place, but we are,” Tomlin said. “There’s obviously a lot of work to do to be quite honest with you. I’m energized in terms of beginning the process of doing it because I’m a competitor. I love this game and this business, even when it’s miserable. I’ve seen so much in it and been through so much in it, very rarely do I respond to the present circumstance, whether it’s positive or negative, because of the depths of the relationship that I have with the game.
“I expressed that to the team yesterday, because it’s not only my job to obviously lead the group and strategize and so forth, but also to provide perspective. We got a lot of young guys who played major roles, who evolved in a lot of ways. I’m excited about them continuing their individual journeys and enhancing those and getting better and better positioning themselves to be significant as we move forward.”
That will entail plenty of meetings and internal examination in the days, weeks and months ahead as the Steelers map out a strategy for 2025 that will end with the desired results.
That process has already begun.
“Certainly there’s change that comes when we don’t have the desired outcome and those are just the realities of the business,” Tomlin acknowledged. “I would imagine there’s going to be some things that change around here on a lot of levels but that’s just this game, as I mentioned.
“I met with (team president) Art Rooney yesterday. I met with (general manager) Omar (Khan) yesterday, and those are just the very beginning of multiple conversations in terms of how we wrap a bow around some of the lessons learned, analyze some of the decisions made, personnel, strategy, etc., and those type of discussions are going on on a lot of levels. How can we keep our team healthier? That was a discussion that happened yesterday, for example. We experienced a rash of soft tissue injuries that was impactful, and that’s just an example of many of the things and subjects that we have covered and will continue to cover as we assess what transpired and quickly transition ourselves and build for the future at the same time.”
That will include some in-depth discussions regarding the team’s plans at quarterback.
Russell Wilson, Justin Fields and Kyle Allen, all brought in for the 2024 season, all have expiring contracts.
Tomlin said he and Khan will meet for the first time later this week to begin discussions regarding the direction the team chooses to take in regard to the quarterback position for 2025.
“We don’t have a quarterback under contract and so we’ve got some major discussions there,” Tomlin said. “It was a really good experience with the three quarterbacks that were on our roster this year, individually and collectively. We are certainly open to considering those guys, but there’s a lot of work ahead of us. The major work starts first and foremost just understanding what our options are … what the field looks like in terms of free agency, what the draft pool looks like and then beginning the process in terms of decision-making based on known variables.”
They aren’t necessarily comfortable conversations or decisions to make. But they are necessary ones when it applies to falling short of the team goals and attempting to change that outcome.
“Certainly there’s going to be pain in terms of watching the rest of the tournament from the outside, but there’s a lot of misfortune in this business,” Tomlin said. “Ultimately, you get what you got coming to you. Certainly as uncomfortable as it is, there had better be growth in it for us individually and collectively and the effort to make sure 2025 doesn’t end in a similar way.”
