Steelers owner and team president Art Rooney II said he’s done seeing Pittsburgh fall short early in the playoffs, adding that he expects his team to end its postseason win drought sooner rather than later.
“We’ve had enough of this,” Rooney said Monday, according to ESPN’s Brooke Pryor. “It’s time to get some wins, it’s time to take these next steps.”
The Steelers haven’t had a losing campaign since head coach Mike Tomlin took over in 2007, and they reached the playoffs in three of the last four seasons. However, Pittsburgh hasn’t won a postseason matchup since the 2016 campaign, going one-and-done four times in that span. The Buffalo Bills eliminated the Steelers with a 31-17 victory in the wild-card round this year.
Tomlin has one year left in his current contract, and there was speculation that he would step away from the Steelers after the team’s loss to the Bills. However, the 51-year-old told his players he’ll return for the 2024 season.
Rooney praised the veteran sideline boss.
“The players still respond to Mike and that’s number one,” Rooney added. “He still has the key characteristics that we saw when we hired him. He can keep the attention of a group of 20-year-olds for a whole season and keep them in the fight for the whole way.
“Still feel good about Mike. Obviously if I didn’t, (we) would make a change, but if we didn’t think Mike was able to lead us to a championship, he wouldn’t be here and that’s why he is here.”
Tomlin helped the Steelers reach the Super Bowl twice in his first four seasons in Pittsburgh, winning the first in February 2009. He’s posted a 173-100-2 regular-season record throughout his career but is 8-10 in the playoffs.
Tomlin’s outfit heads into the offseason with a major question at quarterback after its Week 1 starter, Kenny Pickett, struggled in 2023. The 2022 first-round pick lost the starting job to Mason Rudolph in the season’s final stretch.
Pickett has thrown for 13 touchdowns against 13 interceptions with a 78.8 passer rating in 24 starts across two NFL seasons.
“We still feel good about Kenny Pickett and his future, but he knows he needs to work hard to take the next step,” Rooney said Monday. “And we’ve talked about that, and one of the things I think we liked about Kenny in terms of his career at Pitt was (how) hard he worked, and he took a step every year. So, we’re looking for that to happen here.”
Pittsburgh’s had a top-10 scoring defense in each of the last two seasons, but its offense ranked 26th and 28th in points scored in 2022 and 2023, respectively.
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