Steeler Season Ends

by Bo Marchionte
@bomarchionte | College2Pro.com
Published January 13, 2025, 12:47 AM

Pittsburgh, PA – The timing was impossible to ignore.

Six days after Mike Tomlin referenced Don Shula and Tom Landry on The Rich Eisen Show, the Steelers were routed 30–6 by the Houston Texans, surrendering 23 points in the fourth quarter. As the game slipped away, boos poured down from Acrisure Stadium for the second consecutive home loss, a sound once foreign in the Tomlin era.

It was in that context not coincidence that Tomlin’s words from earlier in the week felt less like history and more like self-defense.

“I’m sure we all want to be Don Shula or Tom Landry,” Tomlin said, “but I think those days are gone.”

He wasn’t being nostalgic. He was explaining the environment he coaches in now.

Shula won early and was allowed to last.

Shula’s first Super Bowl came in 1972, when the Miami Dolphins completed the only perfect season in NFL history. He followed it with another title in 1973.

What followed is the part modern football no longer allows.

Shula never won another Super Bowl, yet remained Miami’s head coach for 22 more seasons, retiring in 1995. During that span, he rebuilt rosters, developed Dan Marino, won divisions, reached another Super Bowl, and retained organizational trust.

One could say that he wasted the prime years of Marino.

In total, Shula coached 26 seasons in Miami and 33 overall as an NFL head coach.

There was no reset button. No countdown clock.

The Dallas Cowboys, Tom Landry won Super Bowls in 1972 and 1978. After his final championship, Landry coached 10 more seasons in Dallas.

There were no additional Lombardi Trophies. There was no panic either.

Landry coached 29 consecutive seasons with one franchise a number that feels almost fictional in today’s NFL.

A Different Era, a Louder Conversation

Aaron Rodgers recently captured the shift when discussing modern coaching scrutiny.

“When I first got in the league, there wouldn’t be conversations about whether those guys were on the hot seat,” Rodgers said. “But the way the league is covered now snap decisions, Twitter experts, TV experts it’s an absolute joke.”

That noise is now unavoidable. And it’s loud in Pittsburgh.

Tomlin’s Reality

Mike Tomlin won Super Bowl XLIII in 2008, just his second season as head coach. Seventeen years later, he is the longest-tenured active head coach in the NFL.

Since that championship:

No losing seasons

Multiple playoff appearances

Several roster and quarterback transitions

Yet following a lopsided home loss to Houston one that unraveled late and never recovered frustration has boiled over. “Renegade” didn’t echo through Acrisure Stadium. Boos did.

Tomlin hears them.

“When you don’t get it done, words are cheap,” Tomlin said after the loss. “It’s about what you do or what you don’t do.”

The Tension

This is the space Tomlin now occupies somewhere between historic consistency and modern impatience.

Shula and Landry were allowed time. Tomlin coaches in a league that demands immediacy, dominance, and visible progress every week. Anything less is met with doubt, noise, and — now boos at home.

When Tomlin invoked Shula and Landry, it wasn’t to excuse the present. It was to remind everyone how different the past was.

And how little room there is now.

 

 

 

Photo Credit Frank Hyatt/College2Pro.com