Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin listens throughout a information convention in Pittsburgh, Friday, March 15, 2024. Tomlin signed an extension with the Steelers on Monday, June 10, that may hold the NFL's longest-tenured coach in Pittsburgh by 2027. (AP Photograph/Rebecca Droke, File)
By Will Graves
The Related Press
PITTSBURGH — The NFL's longest tenured head coach received't be leaving Pittsburgh anytime quickly.
The Steelers signed Mike Tomlin to a three-year extension on Monday that may carry by means of at the least the 2027 season. Tomlin was about to enter the ultimate yr of the deal he agreed to in April 2021.
Tomlin, 52, is 173-100-2 since taking up for Corridor of Famer Invoice Cowher in 2007. Tomlin has but to endure a dropping season, and regardless of hypothesis late final season that thinks about taking a break, he stays. intend to assist the Steelers keep within the combine in a extremely aggressive AFC.
“I’m grateful for this contract extension and thank Artwork Rooney II for his assist throughout my first 17 years in Pittsburgh,” Tomlin mentioned in a press release. “We proceed to work diligently to get again to the place we belong – sustained playoff success with the final word purpose of profitable the franchise's seventh Lombardi Trophy.”
Pittsburgh is coming off an eventful 10-7 season that ended with a first-round playoff loss to Buffalo. Tomlin was requested instantly after his future standing, and as an alternative of answering, he abruptly stepped off the rostrum.
A couple of days later, the relentlessly energetic Tomlin hardly seemed like somebody on the point of exhaustion, stressing that he was “on the transfer” as he seemed to 2024 and past.
“I coach soccer, that's what I do,” Tomlin mentioned in January. “I’m respectful of the place I maintain. I’ve no sense of entitlement in what I do. I've acquired a excessive degree of respect for what all of us do on this area, and I attempt to earn it day by day.”
Whereas Pittsburgh has been persistently aggressive beneath Tomlin, the franchise has not received a postseason sport because the divisional spherical of the 2016 playoffs, an eight-year drought that marks the membership's longest because the Immaculate Conception in 1972.
Tomlin's resolution to remain extends an unparalleled degree of continuity on the high of a corporation that has had simply three head coaches since 1969. Nevertheless, the Steelers have additionally made numerous strikes of late that counsel the staff is not content material with simply to be within the combine in mid-January.
Up to now yr alone, Tomlin fired offensive coordinator Matt Canada midseason, the staff's first in-season firing of a high-level coach since World Warfare II.
Pittsburgh spent the offseason utterly overhauling its quarterback room, signing Russell Wilson in free company, buying and selling Kenny Pickett and buying Justin Fields from Chicago.
Tomlin has used the phrase “excited” in latest months to speak about Pittsburgh's rapid future. The brand new contract signifies proprietor Artwork Rooney II's dedication to letting Tomlin attempt to discover a difference-maker at quarterback, one thing that has been a problem since Ben Roethlisberger retired after the 2021 season.
“Mike Tomlin's management and dedication to the Steelers has been crucial to our success in his first 17 years as head coach,” Rooney mentioned in a press release. “Extending his contract for one more three years displays our confidence in his skill to information the staff again to profitable playoff video games and championships whereas persevering with our custom of success.”
The Steelers have necessary minicamp this week, then take a break earlier than reporting for coaching camp at Saint Vincent Faculty on July 24.