What lessons the Steelers and Mike Tomlin learn from Bill Belichick and Pete Carroll to finally right the ship

This post was originally published on this site

Eighteen years is a long time with one organization. If the Steelers and Tomlin want to right the ship, they should learn from two of his peers: Bill Belichick and Pete Carroll.

“You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” — Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight (2008)

As the curtain closed on Pittsburgh’s 2024 season, the unrest throughout Steelers Nation was palpable. The defeat in Baltimore marked the franchise’s sixth straight playoff loss, a streak that began with a loss in the 2016 AFC Championship game. With each passing year, the voices calling for a coaching change have grown in number and volume.

Perhaps aware of this, head coach Mike Tomlin promised “big changes” at his end-of-season press conference two weeks ago. What will those changes be? Tomlin left that undefined. The rest of his presser was full of the usual declarations that he and his staff will be hard at work this offseason but did little to dissuade allegations his team is stuck in a cycle of mediocrity.

The fanbase’s frustration has only grown since.

If it wasn’t clear already, comments made by owner Art Rooney II and the presence of Arthur Smith and Teryl Austin at the Senior Bowl ended any hopes of significant coaching staff changes. Instead, it seems the “big changes” will be the replacement of a few staff members — of which inside linebackers coach Aaron Curry became the first — and maybe some malcontents among the roster will be released or traded away.

Everything else? Business as usual. Cue the groans in the comments.

When Tomlin extended his contract last summer, I brought up the firings of Pete Carroll and Bill Belichick in Read & React. As Tomlin’s peers, I find it hard not to see the similarities between the three men’s careers.

Belichick, Carroll, and Tomlin all cut their teeth as a defensive coach. Among them, Carroll’s 14-year run with the Seahawks is the shortest. Each man was lauded for the cultures they established within their team. Each coach has won a Super Bowl — and lost one. Each finds themselves among the top-20 winningest coaches in NFL history.

And yet, two of the three — after becoming the greatest coach in their franchise’s history —eventually wore out their welcome.

Regardless of how you feel about Tomlin, for now, he still has ownership’s confidence. Setting those feelings aside, the fact is Tomlin has a contract through the 2027 season. We know how the Steelers are with contracts — Tomlin has a decently high chance of making it to the end of that deal.

But even Art Rooney II will reach a point where he needs to sell change if the Steelers remain among the NFL’s also-rans. For this thought exercise, we’ll be operating under the assumption that Tomlin is coaching for his next contract. With that in mind, I wanted to look back at where things ultimately went wrong for Belichick and Carroll. If Tomlin hopes to rejuvenate the Steelers’ winning ways, is there anything he can learn from their dismissals?

The quarterback is key

Photo by Adam Glanzman/Getty Images

Let’s get the most obvious lesson out of the way first. If Tomlin wants to start winning playoff games again, the Steelers have to find a quarterback.

Consider the following:

• In 185 games where Tom Brady wasn’t his starting quarterback, Bill Belichick went 83-102 (.448) and 1-2 in the playoffs.
• In 282 games with Brady, Belichick went 219-63 (.776) and won six out of nine Super Bowl appearances.
• In 133 games without Russell Wilson, Pete Carroll is 66-67 (.496) and 2-4 in the playoffs.
• In 158 games with Wilson, Carroll went 104-53-1 (.658) with a Super Bowl win in two appearances with Wilson.
• In 84 games without Ben Roethlisberger, Mike Tomlin is 46-37-1 (.547) and is 0-2 in the playoffs.
• In 208 games with Big Ben, Tomlin went 137-70-1 (.658), winning one out of two Super Bowl appearances.

It should be shocking to no one that each coach was drastically better when they had Brady, Roethlisberger, or Wilson. That’s two surefire Hall of Famers and Wilson, himself one of the most impactful quarterbacks of the 2010s. Of course, they were better with them.

Each team’s situation is unique every year with the factors that get stacked against them. Some years, there’s a tight cap to manage, or a rash of injuries, talent drain from staff and roster from the previous year, etc.

You know what helps mitigate some of those issues? Having a star quarterback.

Finding one will be no easy task, especially this offseason, with few viable options presently available. But it is crucial.

Entering his third year in Seattle, Carroll had gone 47-49 in the NFL with Jets-version Boomer Esiason, Drew Bledsoe for three years in New England, and one year each of Matt Hasselbeck and Tarvaris Jackson in Seattle. Belichick had been fired from Cleveland after cycling through Bernie Kosar, Mike Tomczak and Vinny Testaverde before going 5-13 with Bledsoe before the quarterback’s league-altering injury.

Drafting Wilson with a third-round pick in 2012 gave Seattle a unique opportunity to capitalize on the change to rookie contract rules made just a year prior in 2011. With Wilson under contract for cheap — and excelling in a run-heavy offensive scheme that only needed him to make a few big plays a game — the Seahawks were able to go out and acquire pass rushers Cliff Avril and Michael Bennett to pair with an ascending, young defense.

Seattle also took some swings on the offensive side of the ball that were less successful, but the offense was good enough. With a strong running game led by Marshawn Lynch already in place, Wilson’s added mobility and penchant for throwing deep had the Seawhawks in back-to-back Super Bowls.

In that way, I’ve always compared the Legion of Boom era in Seattle to the early days of Brady and Roethlisberger. All three won a Super Bowl in their quarterback’s second season in the league. And each of those teams won with elite defenses that benefited from a run-heavy offense suddenly more capable in passing situations with their young quarterback.

Flash forward to life after a franchise quarterback, and things are much tougher.

Carroll arguably did the best job of the three in finding his replacement quarterback. When Seattle traded Wilson to Denver, Carroll selected Geno Smith as the new starter and went 9-8 in back-to-back seasons, going 0-1 in the playoffs, before Seattle pulled the plug.

Belichick, naturally, was given a few more years to figure out his path forward post-Brady, starting in 2020. He managed to squeeze a Wild Card round appearance out of Mac Jones, but went a combined 19-31 and failed to have a winning season in three out of the four seasons he coached after Brady’s departure.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because Tomlin finds himself in a similar situation. The Steelers’ offense during the Killer B era was Super Bowl-worthy, but the Steelers’ defense underwent a lot of growing pains during that time. By the time the Steelers had the core of a good defense, Roethlisberger’s injuries had caught up to him in 2019. When he returned, he could no longer carry an offense that itself had lost a lot of talented players.

Unlike Carroll, Tomlin and Belichick both got a crack at drafting a QB after their quarterback departed. Neither were successful.

After a season 7-9 season with Cam Newton, the Patriots felt the pressure to draft a quarterback and selected Mac Jones with the 15th pick in the 2021 draft. You can’t fault the Patriots for trying, but Jones was the last man chosen in a quarterback class that had five first-rounders. Of those five quarterbacks, only Trevor Lawrence remains with the team that drafted him. Jones had an impressive final season at Alabama, but his average-at-best athleticism and shaky response to pressure were both red flags that came to fruition as his career progressed.

It’s not too different from the Kenny Pickett experiment in Pittsburgh. The Steelers selected Pickett despite warnings from the scouting community that the 2022 draft class was the weakest class in years. Pickett was widely considered a borderline first-round prospect and was the only quarterback chosen in the first round. Tomlin has avoided full blame for how Pickett turned out, primarily because it felt like Kevin Colbert wanted to cement his legacy further by finding “the guy-after-the guy” no matter what. While Tomlin likely signed off on the move, it’s hard to know how much influence each man had on the choice.

Regardless, by last offseason, the Steelers were ready to cut bait and moved quickly to do so. While I always had doubts about Pickett’s abilities, Tomlin shouldn’t remain blameless for his role in the less-than-ideal environment he assembled for his young quarterback.

It seems unlikely Tomlin will find his long-term answer at quarterback this offseason, but I’d wager he gets one more crack at it, perhaps in the 2026 class.

Don’t let the message grow stale

It’s hard to stay employed with one team in the NFL. On average, an NFL head coach gets three years with a team before they’re replaced. After Belichick and Carroll were let go, only Baltimore’s John Harbaugh (17 years) and Kansas City’s Andy Reid (12 years) remain with Tomlin as coaches that have a tenure longer than eight years.

When you spend a long time with any group of people, it can become challenging to keep the messaging fresh and exciting. When a team is winning, all the sayings and philosophies a coach has instilled are praised. They are symbols of his ability to build a culture. But when success starts to fade, those same messages and philosophies can begin to sour.

In New England, the unique and curmudgeonly way Belichick ran operations became known as the Patriot Way. For players, you were expected to “Do Your Job,” and trust that Belichick and Brady would have all the right answers as long as you bought in. And to their credit, they did more often than not.

Brady, however, would eventually grow tired of the Patriot Way.

Heading into the 2019 season, the Patriots had won three of the previous five Super Bowls. In doing so, Brady had surpassed Terry Bradshaw and his childhood idol Joe Montana for the most Super Bowl wins all-time by a quarterback. In American sports pop culture, Brady had entered the rare air that once belonged only to Michael Jordan. The fact that his second run of Super Bowl victories began at the age of 37 —10 years after his last Super Bowl victory — all but assured he would retire as the greatest quarterback of all time.

Having reached the mountain top, Brady had little left to achieve in New England. He began to bristle at the gruff way Belichick continued to treat him. Nobody had represented “Do Your Job” better than Brady had. Yet he felt that Belichick — undoubtedly a defensive genius — had taken Brady’s contributions for granted. When Brady and the 12-4 Patriots were eliminated in the Wild Card round by his former teammate Mike Vrabel and the Tennessee Titans, it was the end for Brady and the Patriots. Maybe Brady wanted to prove he could do his job without Belichick. Maybe he just wanted to leave the harsh winters of Foxborough and snowbird in Florida. Maybe he just didn’t want to spend his last few years with a man with which he’d built up 20 years worth of grievances.

With Brady gone, the Patriots floundered. Belichick’s defenses remained among the league’s best statitisicaly, but the Patriots’ offense couldn’t hold up their end, eventually leading to Belichick’s ouster.

Pete Carroll’s departure from Seattle was another drawn-out affair. In retrospect, the heights the Legion of Boom Seahawks could have reached ended at the hands of Brady and Belichick in 2015.

When Carroll arrived in Seattle in 2010 after a tumultuous departure from the college ranks, there was plenty of skepticism. Many wondered if Carroll had what it took to be successful in the NFL after his two previous stints with the Jets and Patriots had be unsuccessful. There were also questions on if Carroll’s his preferred defensive scheme was too simplistic and if his desire to run the ball was outdated in a league that was in the middle of a passing game evolution. Carroll’s personality is uniquely positive and energetic, and some wondered if his“Always Compete” mantra was to hokey to be taken seriously now that he was coaching adults instead of college students.

The Seahawks won their division in Carroll’s first year despite a 7-9 record. A midseason trade for running back Marshawn Lynch— at that time a talented but underperforming player — spurred them to a memorable upset of the Saints in the Wild Card round, but the team would miss the playoffs the following year after another 7-9 campaign.

But during this time, the Seahawks would find many of the players that would be come the core of their Super Bowl roster.

In addition to trading for Lynch in 2010, the Seahawks drafted safeties Earl Thomas and Kam Chancellor, left tackle Russell Okung and wide receiver Golden Tate.

In 2011 they drafted cornerback Richard Sherman, linebacker K.J. Wright, eventual Super Bowl MVP Malcolm Smith, guard James Carpenter and cornerback Byron Maxwell. They also signed Brandon Browner, a cornerback who had been in the CFL since 2006, and undrafted rookie wideout Doug Baldwin.

2012 brought Russell Wilson, linebacker Bobby Wagner and defensive end Bruce Irvin, as well as several role players in reserve roles. Those players would come to embody Carroll’s vision. A team that took pride in their toughness. Many of their key contributors were not highly drafted — or drafted at all — and Carroll encouraged them to embrace their underdog narratives. On Carroll’s team, the best players would play, regardless of where they were drafted or how much they had signed for.

Early on, the players felt emboldened by this. The defense was suffocating and they weren’t afraid to let everybody else know about it. Nobody was more brash about their dominance than Sherman.

The Seahawks would win the franchise’s first title in 2013, embarrassing Peyton Manning and a Broncos offense that just completed a historic season of their own. A year later, the Seahawks found themselves on the goalline knocking on the door of back-to-back titles.

But then Malcolm Butler and another case of Patriots’ devil magic had other ideas.

After that, the Seahawks would begin a slow, painful death to the Legion of Boom Era. Several members of the team have since admitted they struggled after letting the Super Bowl get away from them. Many members of the team blamed Wilson and Carroll and it became no secret that the stars on Seattle’s defense began to turn on both quarterback and coach. Injuries and the steady departure of key members of the Super Bowl defense saw the Legion of Boom era officially come to an end in 2019 with this unceremonious departure of the legendary secondary’s last remaining member.

The Seahawks never bottomed out under Carroll, but they never truly contended again. The Seahawks made the playoffs in five of Carroll’s final nine seasons, but they went 3-6 and failed to advance past the divisional round. As the Legion of Boom began to fade, Wilson made a play for more input on the offense. Ironically, tensions would grow between the front office, and the quarterback, many defensive players complained, was not held to the same level of accountability as the rest of them. Reports came out that Wilson even tried to have Carroll fired, though Wilson has always denied this.

Carroll was given two more seasons to try to turn the Seahawks around, but after two 9-8 seasons, Seattle decided it was time to move on.

After decades around the game, Belichick and Carroll were both slow to change. Though Belichick made a reputation as being one of the most adaptable defensive minds in NFL history, his beliefs on how an NFL team should be managed were rigid. Once Brady was out of the building, it was clear his approach was not clicking with a new generation of players.

Carroll on the other hand struggled to adapt to roster turnover and an evolving game. When the Seahawks were winning, Carroll’s Cover 3 heavy defense was praised for being easy enough for players to learn quickly. As seasons passed, however, the NFL adjusted and found counters to his scheme. This coincided with a major talent drain to his defense as players aged out or had injuries impact their careers. Carroll’s team reached a space that Steelers fans should be all too familiar with: good enough to make the playoffs, not good enough to make a run at the Super Bowl.

As Tomlin heads towards year 19 with the Steelers, he’d do well to learn from Belichick and Carroll. When you’re winning, you’re building a culture. When you aren’t, or fail to meet your own lofty goals, that’s when eyes begin to roll and fingers start getting pointed. It’s human nature. The standard is the standard sounds great when you’re competing for titles. When you’re not, it starts to ring hollow.

The cracks are beginning to show. As the Steelers began to fade in December, the frustration from the players reached a point I’ve never seen before with the Steelers. Throw on the tape and you’ll see a lot of defenders pointing fingers over the final month of the season. Players hinted to reporters that there was at least one person, if not multiple, that weren’t doing their job correctly. That doesn’t even George Pickens’ comments that he isn’t optimistic about the team’s future and the rumors that Arthur Smith and Russell Wilson were fighting in-season, and Tomlin looks like a man without his house in order.

Needless to say, that can’t continue if the Steelers are going to ever be contenders again under Tomlin.

Keep introducing new voices

Tomlin gets a lot of grief for his absence of a coaching tree. Perhaps that’s fair, but it should be noted Belichick’s tree — Josh McDaniels, Matt Patricia, Charlie Weiss, Romeo Crennel, Bill O’Brien, Brian Flores — is not too inspiring either. It shouldn’t go unnoticed that many of these “Patriots Way” coaches not only failed outside the confines of Foxborough, but several also earned reputations as being difficult to work with at best and outright jerks at worst.

Many of those men made returns to the Patriots, in some cases multiple times. Belichick also hired his sons Brian and Steve into roles on his staff. From the outside looking in, Belichick’s circle appeared to keep shrinking.

Carroll’s tree, to his credit, is at least a mixed bag. Coaches like Dan Quinn, Robert Saleh, Gus Bradley and Dave Canales have all had varying degrees of success, but so far many have been better as coordinators than head coaches. Despite plenty of turnover in his staff over the years, Carroll still rarely strayed from his long-held beliefs. His defense couldn’t keep up with modern offenses, especially without the level of talent those Legion of Boom teams had.

While it seems apparent now that Tomlin is running it back with both Arthur Smith and Teryl Austin — and maybe even offensive line coach Pat Meyer — I hope he considers going outside his comfort zone with any staff replacements or additional staffing hires. The Steelers desperately need some new ideas on both sides of the ball.

Tomlin’s defense has started to plateau in a way similar to Carroll’s. The Steelers rarely disguise what they’re doing and are still running many of the same concepts they’ve run for years, as has been pointed out repeatedly already this offseason.

On offense, the Steelers preach ball control and a heavy run game, but so far haven’t been able to back it up. I quibble with people who think a run-first approach can’t work in modern football, especially this year when passing was down across the league. Teams like Philadelphia, Baltimore and Buffalo were among the league’s best with this approach, and Kansas City are the kings of ball control. It’s a strategy that makes a ton of sense as NFL defenses have started to get smaller in the box to combat the modern passing game.

But where the Steelers have failed is in their execution, at least so far. The blocking schemes this year were a mess. In practically every game you could find multiple plays where a player didn’t know who they were supposed to block. Blocking from the tight ends and wide receivers was also suspect, with poor technique from several players, and poor effort at times from at least one mercurial receiver.

I also found Smith’s passing concepts to often be lacking. Spacing was often an issue, with players running routes in the same area of the field as a teammate more often than I’d like to count. Either Smith’s designs were poor, or he struggled to get his players to understand them and the timing needed to execute them.

And that doesn’t even touch on some of Tomlin’s struggles in recent seasons with clock management, when and what types of situations to throw the challenge flag, and when he should go for it on 4th down.

In any case, if Tomlin is smart, he’ll be open to new ideas from people outside of his usual circles. Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and hoping for a different outcome.

Final notes

A couple of other points I wanted to make but don’t warrant their own section:

— Don’t let the offensive line get bad. The Steelers have been committed resources towards their line, but have yet to reap the rewards of that. Both the Patriots and Seahakws let their lines deteriorate, which only compounded the issue once they moved on from their legendary quarterbacks. The Steelers have struggled with that as well and should continue to invest in the line’s development at all costs. You’d like to have that shored up by the time they find the next franchise quarterback.

— While this might be more of a silly coincidence, if I was Tomlin, I would make sure I win the international game in Ireland. In Belichick’s final season, the Patriots lost to a 4-5 Colts team in Frankfurt and dropped to 2-8. It had been hinted at leading up to the game that Robert Kraft could fire Belichick if they lost that game, and while Belichick wasn’t immediately fired after that game, many believe Kraft made up his mind that day. Owners don’t like being embarrassed while visiting their friends overseas. It’s believed that the Jets’ loss to the Vikings in London this season led to Woody Johnson pulling the plug on Robert Saleh. Carroll’s Seahawks lost to the Buccaneers in Munich in 2022. That may not fit our international games theory perfectly, but Tomlin would be wise not to take any chances.