Mike Tomlin isn’t lining up a return to the sideline right now, but he isn’t shutting the door on one either.
The former Pittsburgh Steelers head coach said during a conference call with NBC correspondents before Sunday night’s Week 10 matchup between the Steelers and the Cincinnati Bengals that coaching is not on his mind at the moment. Tomlin will be in attendance for the game as part of NBC’s “Football Night in America” crew.
“I haven’t given one iota of thought to coaching,” Tomlin said. “I’m sure some of that is going to come up in the not-so-distant future. But I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.”
Tomlin’s run in Pittsburgh ended after the 2025 campaign, and while the finish was not always smooth, his overall résumé is the kind that puts him on a Hall of Fame track. In 19 seasons with the Steelers, he never posted a losing record and finished with a regular-season mark of 193-114-2.
His postseason stretch at the end of that tenure was rough, with the Steelers dropping seven straight playoff games under his watch. Still, that doesn’t erase the peak years: Tomlin won Super Bowl XLIII in 2008 and added seven more playoff wins across 13 trips to the postseason.
That body of work leaves him tied with Chuck Noll for the ninth-most head coaching wins in NFL history, a place in the record book that will stand no matter what comes next.
If Tomlin ever does decide to coach again - whether that’s in 2027, 2028 or later - there’s also a wrinkle involving his old team. It’s unclear whether Pittsburgh would be able to trade his rights and get assets back in return.
The Saints were able to do that with Sean Payton after he stepped away following the 2021 season, before he was hired by the Denver Broncos in 2023. Whether the Steelers could do the same remains unknown.
If Pittsburgh still holds Tomlin’s contractual rights, the team could potentially land a first-round pick or more from the club that hires him, a move that would help in its search for a franchise quarterback.
And if he does land back on an AFC sideline, that would create another layer for the Steelers, since they’d be seeing him regularly as a conference opponent.
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