PITTSBURGH -- Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin is stepping down after 19 seasons in Pittsburgh, sources told ESPN's Jeremy Fowler and Adam Schefter.
Tomlin, who has two years remaining on his contract, informed Steelers players of his decision to walk away at their 2 p.m. ET meeting Tuesday, one day after Pittsburgh was eliminated from the playoffs with a 30-6 loss to the Texans in the AFC wild-card round.
Tomlin, 53, leaves Pittsburgh with the unprecedented accomplishment of never having a losing season in nearly two decades at the helm of the franchise. He clinched his 200th career NFL victory in Week 16 against the Lions and tied Chuck Noll for ninth all-time with 193 regular-season wins in a Week 18 victory against the Ravens, which clinched the AFC North title.
With Tomlin's departure, the Steelers will begin the search for just their fourth head coach since 1969. Tomlin previously signed an extension in 2024 that could've kept him with the team through the 2027 season, including a club option that had a decision date of March 1, 2026.
Because he resigned while still under contract, the Steelers will retain Tomlin's coaching rights and could negotiate compensation if he returns to an NFL sideline before the end of the 2027 season.
Before his resignation, Tomlin was the longest-tenured head coach of a singular North American professional sports franchise.
For all his accomplishments, Tomlin ended his historic tenure in Pittsburgh with a frustrating nine-year drought without a postseason victory. Despite winning a Super Bowl, two conference championships and seven division titles, Tomlin's teams went a cumulative 8-12 in postseason play. His last postseason win was an 18-16 victory against the Kansas City Chiefs in 2016.
The Steelers followed up that Chiefs win with a 36-17 loss to the New England Patriots in the AFC championship game, their last conference title game appearance. Since then, the Steelers have been one-and-done in six postseason appearances, and they've been outscored 131-58 in their last three wild-card losses.
Tomlin's final game in Pittsburgh ended with choruses of boos as fans resurrected chants to fire the coach as he and Aaron Rodgers walked off the field, descended down the field-level stairs and disappeared into the tunnel just after 11 p.m.
"When you don't get it done, words are cheap," Tomlin said, responding to a question about his message to fans after the game. "It's about what you do or you don't do. And so, I appreciate the question, but people talk too much in our business. You either do or you don't."
At his post-game news conference Monday night, Tomlin offered little assurance he would return to the Steelers, a departure from his message after previous season-ending losses. Players, though, supported their head coach in the aftermath of the loss, including Rodgers, who signed a one-year contract in May 2025.
"Mike T. has had more success than damn near anybody in the league for the last 19, 20 years," Rodgers said. "And more than that, though, when you have the right guy and the culture is right, you don't think about making a change, but there's a lot of pressure that comes from the outside and obviously that sways decisions from time to time.
"But it's not how I would do things and not how the league used to be."
Longtime defensive captain Cameron Heyward, drafted No. 31 overall by the Steelers in 2011, also stumped for Tomlin in the face of external noise.
"I don't really care about that noise because they don't know what Mike T. puts into this," an emotional Heyward said, standing in a near-empty locker room late Monday night. "They don't know how he goes out of his way to prepare every man. They don't know about the countless nights that man is in there studying film. Coaching is only going to do so much, players have to play better. And in those critical moments, players are going to step up."
Marked by improbable wins and hard-to-fathom losses, Tomlin's final season was a microcosm of his near two-decade tenure in Pittsburgh.
After a non-traditional Steelers offseason that saw the high-profile acquisition of Rodgers, wide receiver DK Metcalf and cornerback Jalen Ramsey, Pittsburgh opened the 2025 season with a 4-1 start and a two-game lead in a division rife with significant injuries. But a loss to the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 7 kicked off a rocky stretch marked by blowout losses to the Los Angeles Chargers and Buffalo Bills and an upset victory over the Indianapolis Colts.
Fans vocally expressed their displeasure with Tomlin in the second half of the 26-7 loss to the Bills as chants of "Fire Tomlin" filled Acrisure Stadium and boos drowned out the Steelers' anthem Styx song "Renegade."
The Steelers rebounded from the Week 13 loss against the Bills with three consecutive wins against the Ravens, Dolphins and Lions and to avoid a losing season and put them in the divisional driver's seat.
An unconventional hire when he took over the head coach position in 2007 following a one-year stint as the Minnesota Vikings' defensive coordinator, Tomlin had near-instant success in Pittsburgh.
At 36, he won Super Bowl XLIII in his second season and became the youngest head coach to raise the Lombardi Trophy at the time. He returned to the Super Bowl a year later but fell to Rodgers' Green Bay Packers. He never made it back in his final 15 seasons as head coach.
Known for his hard-hitting defenses and continuing the Steelers' organizational tradition of dominant run games, Tomlin struggled to find consistency at quarterback following Ben Roethlisberger's retirement in 2022. The Steelers drafted Kenny Pickett with a 2022 first-round pick, but the Pitt product was traded away after two seasons.
Including Roethlisberger's final season as a starter, the Steelers have had five different Week 1 starting quarterbacks in each of the last five seasons.
With the loss to the Texans, Tomlin, who went 10-7 in each of his final three seasons, became the first head coach in franchise history to go nine consecutive seasons without a postseason victory. Nine seasons without a playoff win also marks the team's longest postseason winless streak in the Super Bowl era. The Steelers also became the first team in NFL history to lose five straight playoff games by double digits.
