PITTSBURGH — The lights went dark, the crowd cheered and the Pittsburgh Steelers’ season came to an end.

After eight years without a playoff win, the Steelers enter the offseason with more questions and louder noise than ever before. Attention now turns to how they plan to fix things and who they need to get rid of. And at the helm is Mike Tomlin, who many will wish was gone before the start of the 2025 campaign.

At one point, Tomlin was considered one of the two, maybe even three, best coaches in the NFL. He’s never had a losing season, remains one of the best motivators the game has ever seen, and wins close games in important moments – at least he used to.

Lately that hasn’t been the case. The Steelers’ eight-year losing streak has seen them endure some unthinkable defeats, highlighted by a 73-0 scoreline between all playoff opponents in the first quarter of their last six games.

What compounded the questions surrounding the head coach was the complete collapse at the end of the season. After a 10-3 start, the Steelers ended the year on a five-game losing streak in which they failed to score more than 17 points in a game, lost twice to the Ravens, and lost both their “cooking” quarterback and their star-studded team Watching defense fall to their knees.

They end the year with the need to rethink their approach. Pittsburgh needs to make changes on defense, which will likely include removing familiar names at all three levels. They have a huge decision to make at quarterback, and anyone who thinks Wilson is the answer stopped watching in Week 14. They don’t have a high draft pick and have a salary cap hit of over $100 million against their defense alone.

This all just adds to the decisions Tomlin made throughout the season. They’ve asked multiple times why the Steelers did or didn’t call a timeout at a critical moment, or why they kept certain players on the field when they weren’t contributing much. And then, most highlighted, is Wilson, who Tomlin had everyone raving about in Week 7 when he said he was the one who made the decision to bench Justin Fields after a 4-2 start.

“That’s why I’m well compensated,” Tomlin said.

It was a really stunning quote at the time. One that made the head coach look like the baddest man in the room. Today it looks like the pinnacle of a coach who has fallen short of his achievements and is now watching everything catch up with him.

Sometimes it’s not about being “good.” Tomlin is a great head coach. Sometimes it’s about not being in the right place. Sometimes it’s about getting stale. Tomlin’s once-dominant run in Pittsburgh may have dried up, and if so, it’s time to admit it.

The questions are big. The answers don’t seem to exist at the moment. And maybe, just maybe, the Steelers’ first step toward a return to glory is to move on from the head coach they once thought was always their best option.

At the moment it feels like he isn’t.

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