The Pittsburgh Steelers continued their offseason program by locking up another key piece of their franchise when they signed head coach Mike Tomlin to a two-year extension this week. This comes on the heels of the Steelers locking up defensive end Cameron Heyward to a long-term deal just days before.

One of the keys to the success of this franchise has been the fact that since the start of the 1969 season, this franchise has had exactly three head coaches.


There are franchises in the league, like the Oakland Raiders that have had three head coaches in the past five seasons. I cannot imagine what I would be like as a fan if I knew that I could expect my team to turn coaches over at such an alarming rate.

The Steelers hired Tomlin after the 2006 season with then head coach Bill Cowher retired. These were some big shoes to fill, as Cowher accumulated a 161-99-1 record along with a 1-1 record in Super Bowls.

Going back just a bit further, Cowher and Tomlin had to follow the immortal Chuck Noll. All he did was turn around a floundering NFL franchise, and lead this team to four Super Bowl championships and a 201-156-1 record.

This sort of history is a lot for Tomlin to live up to. After all, he came to the Steelers with no previous head coaching experience. In fact, Tomlin only had one season as a coordinator in the previous year with the Minnesota Vikings. There was some significant trepidation among the Steelers faithful upon his hire. A standard with the Steelers over the years has been defense, and the hope was that Tomlin would help maintain that level of excellence.

Tomlin is 87-50 with Pittsburgh and 1-1 in Super Bowls. This was enough in nine seasons that the Steelers front office decided to commit to Tomlin through the 2018 season. This was due in large part from the success in 2014. Tomlin had some initial success, but some attributed that to inheriting Cowher’s franchise. After going 8-8 in consecutive seasons in 2013 and 2012, there were concerns whether or not Tomlin could build his own roster and win with it.

So with that, the rally in 2014 and the 11-5 record that went along with it helped. Winning another AFC North title was huge, and even though the Steelers lost in the first round of the playoffs to the Baltimore Ravens, more attribute that more to the loss of star running back Le’Veon Bell the week before than anything else. Now, if Tomlin and his staff had perhaps better prepared for the absence of Bell, and not worked him quite as hard down the stretch, things could have turned out very differently.

The exact financial terms of Tomlin’s new contract are still a mystery. All we do know is that he is set to be paid among the Top-5 coaches in all of sports. I don’t know exactly how much coaches of other sports are paid, but the rumor is that for the next three seasons, Tomlin will be paid in excess of $7 million per year.

Overall, this signing was exactly what this franchise needed. After signing offensive coordinator Todd Haley to an extension last season, and the promotion of new defensive coordinator Keith Butler, the staff is locked in for the next few seasons. All of the talent on a roster cannot overcome a coaching staff that is constantly being turned over. The Rooney’s recognize this, and it is why they have been so successful over the past five decades.