Breakups are almost always messy. Why do you think there are so many good songs about them?

Almost every time, at least one side ends up feeling betrayed, hurt, or just heartbroken over the smoldering remains.

But sometimes, both sides can acknowledge when something just is no longer working. You don’t have to gave ill will towards your ex, you can simply wish them will and look to the future.

It feels like we’ve hit that point in Pittsburgh with head coach Mike Tomlin.

That feeling started around this same time last year. A Steelers team led by Russell Wilson had lost four straight to end the season and limped into the postseason at 10-7. Against Baltimore, the Steelers simply laid down and died on the field at M&T Bank Stadium. 

It was an embarrassing ending to a season that once held some promise. Pittsburgh was in talk for the one-seed in the AFC heading into the final month and a half of the season. Instead, it ended in ruins. 

Instead of potentially entering a new era of Steelers football, the organization tried a similar approach with a new face. With Tomlin still at coach, the team brought in a new veteran on a one-year deal in the name of Aaron Rodgers.

Almost one year later, the Steelers had their revenge on Baltimore. In a regular season finale for the ages, the Steelers eked out a 26-24 win that saw Tyler Loop’s last second missed field goal send the Steelers to the postseason.

But in knocking the Ravens off and taking their spot as the AFC North representative in the playoffs, Pittsburgh had to face their own ghosts with a playoff matchup against the Houston Texans.

The Steelers went into the wild card game sporting some of the worst trends imaginable in their recent playoff work. In the then-six game losing streak in the playoffs, Pittsburgh had been outscored 73-0 in the first quarter, lost all but one game by double digits, and had trailed by at least 21 points in every game.

Yet, this was their best chance to break that wretched streak.

This game was their first true home playoff game since 2017 vs Jacksonville. Pittsburgh won the division in 2020 and hosted Cleveland in their first game, but with COVID-19 regulations still largely in place, the crowd was a skeleton crew. Maybe it was for the best. No one should have had to watch that in person. 

But, after three playoff losses on the road, you now had a chance to have a passionate crowd behind you.

A home playoff game, at full capacity, with a man under center who has seen and done it all, including beating this very team in a Super Bowl, was your best chance. That chance ended with a 30-6 loss.

Nine straight years without a playoff win. 

The Steelers have now failed to do something that over ¾ of the NFL has done more recently. By the way the national media often talks about this team, you’d never know it. 

It’s almost a testament to the brand of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Their standard has fallen over the years, but Steeler fans are often lectured by personalities who tell them they should be grateful for what they have. 

Their argument lacks context, and perspective. Should fans be grateful to have a reason to watch week in and week out every single year? Yes. Should they be forced to settle for that, and only that, for all eternity? Absolutely not. 

And that, truly, is what’s at the core of an anger burning here in Pittsburgh. While a small group of fans would rather watch them tank and imitate a full rebuild, most just want better than what they have received for nine straight years. 

Tomlin would have had a great chance to fend off fans and local critics if he had just snagged one playoff win. That was the main goal heading into this season. You don’t bring in Aaron Rodgers to continue to be mediocre. You bring him in to try and go on a run in the postseason.

Yet, it’s another season now lying in ruins. The Steelers have now lost six straight playoff games.

The feeling in the closing minutes of Monday night (and probably the early hours of Tuesday morning) is one Steelers fans have become all too familiar with.

But there was something just a little bit different. For the first time throughout all of this, it felt like change might actually happen. Talk has been louder than ever about Tomlin’s interest in other career avenues, and the camera crews on the Monday Night Football broadcast paid a lot of attention to Tomlin as he walked off the field.

It’s starting to feel like a natural ending for the two sides.

For all the things he does right, all the games the Steelers aren’t supposed to win but do, they always have their opposite result as well. In 2025 terms: for every New England win, there’s a Cleveland loss. 

It’s one of the most predictable things about the Steelers. If you took a poll of fans ahead of the Browns game, you’d find a deeply nervous, dreadful group of people. Because they’ve seen this movie before, and they didn’t like the ending. 

And consider how these losses, dubbed “Tomlin games” by his critics, could have drastically changed their seasons over the years. 

This year, two losses to an eventual 5-12 Cleveland and 6-11 Cincinnati meant the difference between comfortably sitting in a playoff spot and fighting for their life in the cold.

Last year, had the Steelers not dropped a game to the 2-8 Browns, they would have been the five-seed instead of the six. 

In 2023, the Steelers lost back to back games to 2-10 Arizona and 2-10 New England. Had they taken care of business there, they would have won the division and hosted a playoff game. 

Three years ago, had the Steelers not lost to a combination of Tyler Huntley and Anthony Brown, and lost again in Cleveland, they would have made the playoffs. 

I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. All these “what if?” moments pile up. So do the seasons just above .500. 

For a fan, it feels like their team has a corporate mandate to get as close to .500 as possible. For years, but particularly in the post-Ben Roethlisberger era, that’s how the Steelers have done. 

It hasn’t mattered what direction they started in. 

In 2022, they were 3-7 and 5-8, before rallying to prevent a ninth loss. In 2023, they were 7-4, then 7-7, then 10-7 thanks to Mason Rudolph. Last year, they were 10-3 before dropping four straight to end the year. And this season, they were 6-6 at one point, before rising to 10-7 and winning the division in dramatic fashion.

And sure, a Tomlin supporter can point out the quarterbacks he did that with. Mitch Trubisky was a backup, Kenny Pickett was a first round bust, Mason Rudolph was a flash in the pan, Justin Fields was a wildcard, Russell Wilson was in the late stages of his career, and Aaron Rodgers is 42 years old. 

Those are all perfectly valid claims. But they also help speak to a very clear ceiling that the Steelers have right now.

Take a look at the last three seasons, in particular. His starters for (at least) the final three games and in the postseason were Mason Rudolph, Russell Wilson, and Aaron Rodgers.

Those are three very different quarterbacks with three different playing styles, strengths, and personalities. But all three of them saw 10-7 seasons and a first round blowout loss in the postseason.

The names change, the route changes, but the results don’t. At a certain point, it’s not the exes, it’s you. 

Is that fair? Maybe not. But how many times can you re-live the exact same season, and exact same heartbreaking night before you finally can’t take it anymore?

Speaking of exes, a common talking point about Tomlin departure, especially from the national media, is how quickly he would get picked up somewhere else. 

They are right. It also doesn’t matter. 

To a litany of teams in the NFL, a competitive roster every year and a chance at the postseason come every December would be a welcome sight. Ask New York Jets fans how good three straight 10-7 seasons would feel.  

But the Steelers should not conduct business based on what other NFL teams might do. It’s a silly and unhelpful way to run your team. Do what is best for you. 

Tomlin could go somewhere else next season, and maybe that team will have a better record than the Steelers. 

Maybe Pittsburgh goes 5-12, 4-13 while Tomlin rattles off a 10-7 season. If Tomlin is gone, the Steelers very possibly take a step back next year, and it would send this city into a spiral.

But making that move isn’t about trying to compete solely in 2026. It’s about the long term trajectory of this franchise. It’s about finding out what truly is the standard of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

That’s something, though, that the Steelers probably won’t ever have to answer. Even at this point, it’s hard to imagine anyone but Tomlin himself will be deciding how long the Steelers employ him.  

And to him, one could simply ask this: what do you gain by still being here? 

I won’t pretend to know anything about his family or his personal life. Maybe they love it here and don’t want to leave. That’s perfectly valid. 

So we’ll approach this from a coaching and professional perspective. What’s to gain?

You’ve reached the mountaintop wearing Steelers clothes. No matter how many people accuse him of winning with Cowher’s players, that’s still his name listed as head coach of the 2008 winning team. It will always be his. 

If he leaves, he’ll have kept his Steelers in playoff contention for all but one of his 309 games he coached. He’ll leave them with 19 straight seasons of non-losing football. 

It’s impossible, and justifiably so, to toss those things aside for now. The goal isn’t to win the regular season, it’s to win the Super Bowl. Tomlin hasn’t even gotten past the first part of that tournament since Barack Obama was still in office. 

In due time, all of his accomplishments here will be appreciated more. Given a clean break between the two, Steelers fans will one day look back appreciatively on an era that made literally every game but one matter. He’ll leave a legacy that’s nearly impossible to replicate or replace.

But right now, that’s not the focus. Today, right here and right now, he does not have the support of a large group of Steelers fans. The predictable outcomes are worn out, the coaching style is outdated, and the process is underwhelming. 

There’s nothing wrong with both sides agreeing to go their separate ways. In all honesty, it’s probably best for both of them. 

Tomlin can start a new adventure with a new team, and receive a hero’s welcome to wherever he goes. Or, he can go to television, and be lauded as a tremendous and new analyst of the game.

The Steelers, meanwhile, can finally start a new era of their team, perhaps at the same time as they install a quarterback they hope to be here for more than one year. 

If it were me (and again, solely from a coaching and professional perspective), it feels far more risky to stay. 

For Tomlin, Rooney, and the organization as a whole, their only saving grace from now until the draft would be time. They would have to hope that four months is long enough for the temperature to come down just enough to avoid a public eruption. 

Maybe in that time, the Steelers acquire a true second wide receiver alongside DK Metcalf. Maybe they hire new assistants, ones not picked by Tomlin. 

But in all honesty, that probably doesn’t work. Just like this frustration isn’t the result of one single issue, neither is the solution. 

April is not that far away. And if a certain group of fans were willing enough to chant for the firing of their longtime head coach, that attitude will only grow, given how things have gone since then. 

Hosting the draft, usually a sign of great pride for an organization and a city, could turn into an ugly, vocal revolt over how Pittsburgh has done business. 

Take out whether or not you personally believe Tomlin is an/the issue. Can you imagine “Fire Tomlin!” chants in front of the draft stage as the first round commences? I can, and it’s quite the ugly scene.

Not every divorce has to be messy, but sometimes, it just needs to happen. This just feels like a natural ending point for both sides.