Is this a make-or-break season for Mike Tomlin?
Yahoo Sports' Nate Tice, Matt Harmon and Charles McDonald dissect the Steelers aging roster and discuss the pressure on Pittsburgh's head coach this season after a run of postseason disappointments. Hear the full conversation on 'Football 301' - and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.
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Video Transcript
So I'm gonna say this is a make or break season for Mike Tomlin.
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Do I think he's about to get fired this uh this next offseason?
Not necessarily, but, like, enough of this already.
Just like lackluster, double digit one and done playoff losses.
Like that's the standard in Pittsburgh at this point.
If, if they can squeak into the playoffs, if they can squeak into the playoffs, you know, on the back of like a team that nobody really believes in.
And I'm not saying this is like all Tomlin's fault.
In fact, I think we would all agree that he certainly coaches around some of the holes on this roster, but I think he doesn't get enough flack for the, the holes on the roster.
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Like the guy has a lot of power.
Within the building.
He has been there forever.
I don't love the way this roster looks on paper and especially when you look at the defense, like 4 of their most important players are probably Cam Hayward, Darius Slay, who was their only real consequential addition on that side of the ball, TJ Watt and Minka Fitzpatrick.
36-year-old Cam Hayward in his 15th season.
Darius Lee is 34, he's in his 13th season.
TJ Watt is 30, he's in his 9th season, and Mina Fitzpatrick is 28 and he's in his 8th season.
Like these guys are all not, not necessarily.
Like, again, they're about, they've, they're coming off good years, or at least Hayward's coming off a great year, but you just never know with guys at this point in their career and like there were rumblings that people weren't totally happy with Mina Fitzpatrick, or maybe some of the freelancing.
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TJ Watt went quiet towards the end of last year.
Again, a 34 year old starting corner across from the only good corner that you've had for the last few years and, and Joey Porter Junior.
That's a little bit of a tenuous thing.
So I just see a lot of ways where this could go wrong for Pittsburgh this year.
And at some point, Especially if this is, you know, Mason Rudolph and Kirk Cousins and whatever is left of Aaron Rodgers.
I just see a lot of ways that this could go wrong, and I think at some point, if this is a, hey, a maybe a 6-win team or something like that, and which by the way, I think this roster could be a 6-win team that does not look that good, then at some point we've got to like ask questions about the whole operation here and just enough of kind of chasing our tail in the same old thing over and over again.
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