Pittsburgh Steelers legend says it's time for team to move on from Mike Tomlin

Pittsburgh Steelers legend says it's time for team to move on from Mike Tomlin originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

Pittsburgh Steelers legend James Harrison thinks that it’s time for the organization to move on from head coach Mike Tomlin.

The Steelers are consistently competitive under Tomlin – they’ve famously never had a losing season under his lead. However, they also haven’t won a single playoff game since 2016, which is a substantial drought, especially for a franchise with a history as rich as the Steelers’.

At 6-6 and coming off of a deflating 26-7 loss to the Buffalo Bills, the Steelers don’t appear poised to break their playoff drought this season either. As a result, Harrison thinks that a major change is in order.

“Something has to be done,” Harrison said on the Deebo and Joe podcast. “I know the Steelers historically don’t move on from coaches, but I think it’s time that history be made, because right now the only history we’re making is being the worst Pittsburgh Steelers team statistically almost in the history of the organization.”

Harrison also explained why he never viewed Tomlin as a “great” coach despite the widely-held opinion that he is, or at least was.

“I have never been a person that thought Coach Tomlin was a great coach,” he said. “I thought he was a good [coach]. … A good coach gets you to play to your potential, and right now the players that we have on that team, I’ve seen play, they’re not playing up to their potential. A great coach gets you to play beyond your potential.”

Harrison isn’t alone in his feelings that the Steelers should move on from the man who led them to a victory in Super Bowl XLIII.

“Fire Tomlin” chants could be heard in Acrisure Stadium during Pittsburgh’s Week 13 loss to Buffalo. Tomlin even responded to the chants after the game.

“I share their frustration tonight,” he said. “We didn’t do enough.”

Will the Steelers actually buck the norm and move on from Tomlin? That’s tough to say, but also there’s still a lot of season left to be played. Pittsburgh is tied for the lead in the AFC North with the Baltimore Ravens, and the two teams still have two games remaining against each other. Those games will go a long way towards determining who wins the division.

So, Pittsburgh’s hopes of securing a fourth consecutive playoff appearance, and potentially even winning a playoff game, are still very much alive. Sure, they’ll need to play better than they did against Buffalo, but that’s a relatively low bar.

If the Steelers do make a run to the playoffs, it’s tough to imagine ownership moving on from Tomlin. However, if they collapse down the stretch and fall short of the playoffs, perhaps they would consider it.

It should be an interesting December in Pittsburgh.