FORMER STEELERS HEAD COACH MIKE TOMLIN. HE NOW WORKS AS AN ANALYST FOR NBC.
What I am about to say is not going to sit well with a lot of folks. So….I am going to apologize in advance. But wait a minute, as my late great uncle Hambone Slim used to say: “Sike, I’m not sorry.”
So, the saga and the vigil to keep Steelers QB Aaron Rodgers in Pittsburgh continues. A few of the pundits are continuing to grovel and push the narrative that Rodgers should remain a Pittsburgh Steeler, but why? Every time I think of him stepping under center in 2026, I suddenly develop an itch for winning. But please allow me to paraphrase Mike Lange, the Pittsburgh Penguins late, great announcer. For me to relieve that itch, I would rather “scratch my back with a hacksaw” than to depend on Aaron Rodgers to get the Steelers through the 2026 regular season. I am not even remotely considering the postseason.
According to the Kelley Blue Book, “in 2023, the average yearly mileage of an automobile was: 12,200 miles.” So, if you purchased a Ford Mustang in 1976, the mileage accumulated during the past 50 years would be around 610,000 miles. So, all things considered, compare Aaron Rodgers to your favorite 1976 Mustang with more than one-half million miles on the odometer? Unless that car was intended just to be a show piece and was a just a vehicle that spent most of its time in a temperature-controlled garage, now might just be the time for you to give the local scrap dealer a ringy-dingy, because more than likely Car Shield or its founder wasn’t even thought of in 1976.
Hey folks, 50 car years is the equivalent of 20 quarterback years, as far as I am concerned. Please consider the following. During these times of mobile QBs, passing on the run, exiting the pocket to extend plays, rushing for first downs and touchdowns…why would the management of the Pittsburgh Steelers or any other NFL franchise be pursuing Aaron Rodgers as if he is a virgin in a brothel?
Aaron Rodgers should be pursuing the Pittsburgh Steelers and not the other way around, right? This is a repeat of an exercise in futility that is way over the top. This is an overflowing crock of Donkey Kong sitting on the back porch, waiting for the blowfly convention to convene.
When Steelers GM Omar Khan was hired on May, 25, 2022, I was so hyped that I was tempted to pull out my artificial tree and the lights that go with it as well as throwing a turkey in the air fryer and baking a few dozen sugar cookies with the green sprinkles on top as well as whippin’ up some eggnog and singing songs. I was certain that he was the belated Christmas gift that I was looking for. I was willing to go all out. Khan began his career with a bang. I anointed him with a few handles. One was “Genghis Khan.” He was rockin ‘n’ rollin’ so tough, I looked at him as the football version of Mick Jagger without the Stones. However, some of his decisions of late seem to be more on the level of our neighborhood garage band.
Let’s talk about honeymoons. A few people are pouting saying that Steelers headmaster Mike McCarthy deserves a honeymoon or grace period for the 2026 season. Mike McCarthy served as the head coach of the Green Bay Packers for 13 seasons, from 2006 to 2018. During that time, he led the team to a Super Bowl victory in the 2010 season. McCarthy was hired by the Dallas Cowboys on January 7, 2020. He was fired by the Cowboys in January 2025. He was given a honeymoon and grace period, twice. Not only was Mike Tomlin denied a honeymoon, but his head coaching “marriage” to the Steelers was almost annulled before it even happened. On January 21, 2007, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported that NFL Hall-of-Famer Russ Grimm had been hired as the man to succeed Bill Cowher as the new head coach of the Steelers. However, within 24 hours, Mike Tomlin signed an agreement to become the new head coach.
That is when the 19-year decapitation process of former Steelers Head Coach Mike Tomlin formally began and continues to this day.
This devaluation process wasn’t based on the honest “kill em quick” type of execution. This was a long, devious and insidious process, designed and implemented in smoke-filled editorial rooms, accepted with zeal and glee by assassins disguised as journalists. They didn’t use a clean quick method like a guillotine to quickly execute the career of Mike Tomlin. Their method was slow and deliberate, and their weapon of choice were Swiss Army knives.
I recall that during the 2025 preseason, the Steelers were in the long and drawn-out process of signing Aaron Rodgers.
At that time, many folks and writers were snickering and whispering in private and yelling and screaming in public that Mike Tomin was a weakling for allowing Aaron Rodgers too much power. The year has changed but the approach of Aaron Rodgers has remained the same. Presently, folks are hiding behind black sunglasses and have donned raspberry berets but are saying absolutely zilch about the current headman Mike McCarthy being forced to jump through the same “ring of fire” that Mike Tomlin was forced to leap through waiting for Aaron Rodgers to finally decide where he was going to land. What makes the indecisiveness of Aaron Rodgers in 2026 any different than his molasses approach to signing with Pittsburgh in 2025? I assume that Mike Tomlin was fully aware that many folks had hired blacksmiths to sharpen their blades for the final push to deliver his final one-way ticket out of Pittsburgh.
Maria Taylor of NBC’s “Football Night in America” recently sat down and chatted with Mike Tomlin and he said the following regarding his resignation. “There’s a loneliness with leadership. I just thought it was a good time for me, personally. And by that I mean just where I am in life. And I thought it was a good time for the organization, to be quite honest with you. We didn’t have a lot of success in the playoffs in recent years. There’s just some veteran players there, man—guys like Cam Heyward and T.J. Watt and (Chris) Boswell—that I thought were worthy of the excitement and the optimism associated with new leadership.”
Mike Tomlin has the means to buy anything that he desires and he needs no tears from me. But when he said, “There’s a loneliness with leadership. I just thought it was a good time for me, personally. And by that I mean just where I am in life.” …I was saddened by that response. Imagine having to deal with everything that you do being scrutinized and analyzed just because your skin contains an excessive amount of melanin? To borrow a quote from the movie, “Conan the Barbarian”…If I were ever asked why I would ever cry for Mike Tomlin, my response would be: “He is Mike Tomlin; he won’t cry, so I cry for him.”