By now, most everyone has heard the quote attributed to former San Francisco 49ers head coach Bill Walsh that no coach should stay with a team for more than 10 years at a time.
It's spoken with some kind of reverence, as if it's gospel – but only by those who seem to think coaches have some kind of "shelf life," before their "message gets stale."
Interestingly, many of the same people who suggest that coaches have been on their job for more than 10 years. The same rules must not apply – or they just choose to ignore them. But we digress.
There are plenty of instances where coaches or executives staying with one team for longer than a decade works out well.
Chuck Noll won his fourth Super Bowl in his 11th season. So, his message must not have gotten stale with his team.
Bill Cowher didn't win a Super Bowl until his 14th season with the Steelers. He had come close before that, but hadn't gotten over the top. Apparently, Cowher's message hadn't gotten stale, either.
Bill Belichick recently parted ways with the Patriots after 24 seasons with the team. He won three Super Bowls in his first five seasons in New England. After his 10th season with the team, the Patriots won three more Super Bowls and had two other appearances.
Guess his message hadn't "gotten stale," either.
There are countless other instances where coaches stayed with one team for more than a decade and won late into their tenure.
So Walsh's theory might have worked for him, but it's not some hard, fast rule that should be quoted like it's gospel.
Every situation, every coach, is different.
And that's especially true in today's NFL. When Walsh surprisingly left the 49ers after his 10th season and third Super Bowl title, San Francisco would go on to win the Super Bowl again in 1989. They would do so again in 1994.
Walsh would return to coaching in 1992 at Stanford University and go 10-3 in his first season. But the Cardinal fell to 4-7 in his second season and 3-7-1 by his third season before he was done in coaching.
There was no such thing as free agency when Walsh made his declaration. It's hard for the message to get stale when the roster largely turns over every three or four years.
Walsh was a fabulous football coach. By all accounts, he also was a great human being. But that doesn't mean his 10-year rule is a one-size-fits-all theory.
And that's all it is, a theory. It's certainly not written in stone.
Which brings us to Mike Tomlin.
He just finished his 17th season with the Steelers, none of which have ended with the team having a losing record, a record in the NFL.
Have all of those seasons ended the way the Steelers and Tomlin would have liked? Absolutely not. The goal each and every season is to hoist the Lombardi Trophy at the end of the season.
That means that 16 times, Tomlin has failed in his expressed goal. That's life. Only one team each season gets to win the championship, while 31 other teams come up short.
But it also doesn't mean the 2023 season was a complete failure for the Steelers.
There was progress made. The Steelers were a better football team than they were in 2022.
"Than it was a year ago? Certainly," Tomlin said when asked if progress was made from 2022 to 2023. "But we're watching (the rest of the playoffs) and not playing. And so, you know there's work to be done."
There is. And the Steelers feel Tomlin is the man to do that job.
What gives him that confidence?
"Fifty-one years of life," Tomlin said. "I'm not lacking confidence in my ability to do the job, while at the same time there's frustration because I want that confetti for this group. And so, whatever we've got to do to do it, whatever changes need to be made. I'm open to it."
And therein lies the key. Perhaps 10 years is enough in one spot if you're not willing to change your ways is, in fact, long enough.
But if you're willing to adjust to the times, continue learning new things and make those necessary changes, you can have plenty of success.
Nobody, for example, would confuse Belichick's early teams with the Patriots with the ones he won with later in his career. Tom Brady was the driving force behind the latter championships, while Brady largely happened to be the quarterback on Belichick's early teams, which were driven by the defense.
The Steelers and Tomlin have adjusted recently. The traded a first-round pick for Minkah Fitzpatrick. They moved up in the first round of the draft to acquire players such as Broderick Jones. They had their most active free agency period in team history last year.
And they have a head coach in which the fire to win still burns white hot.
"You know, it's probably intensified, to be quite honest with you," Tomlin said. "I just see things with greater clarity through experience. And so, it's probably intensified."
• Tomlin stated a desire to hire an offensive coordinator who has experience in the NFL doing the job.
That makes sense.
First, it makes much more sense to hire a known commodity. That way there are no surprises. Yes, that coordinator has likely been fired at some point in his career, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a coach who has not had that happen to them.
But there's comfort in knowing that when it's fourth-and-goal in a big game, your offensive coordinator isn't going to freeze up because he's been in that situation before.
Some have previously suggested the Steelers go find some hot, young offensive assistant and make that person the coordinator.
There's some merit to that. But for every hot assistant that's worked out, there are probably five that have not.
And there's also the issue of a hot, young coordinator being quickly hired away after a year or two and placing a team back at square one.
The Steelers also still have a very young offense. Bringing in a veteran coach to lead that unit could be a stabilizing factor.
• Tomlin said he would like to have Mason Rudolph return in 2024 as competition for Kenny Pickett.
Pickett never moved from being listed atop the team's depth chart at quarterback even when he was healthy enough to return for the last couple of games of the season.
So, it's not a surprise that he would begin the offseason listed as No. 1. After all, once the new league year begins March 13, only he and Mitch Trubisky would currently be on the roster.
But as Tomlin showed at the end of the season, he'll go with the player who best gives his team a chance to win, regardless of who that might be.
"There will be competition. There's always competition in this thing," Tomlin said. "We don't anoint anyone. I'm appreciative of his efforts and where he is and excited about continuing to work with him. But certainly, he will be challenged from a competition perspective moving forward. Competition brings the best out in all of us."
Rudolph will be a free agent this offseason. The Steelers would like to have him return.
And an argument could certainly be made that he could have a leg up in the competition considering he led the Steelers to a 3-1 record in his four starts, throwing for 945 yards with five touchdowns and one interception.
"I don't think that any of us can deny what we've seen over the last month or so," Tomlin said of Rudolph's play. "I cannot underscore how impressive it is to be ready. And that preparedness showed. We're less speculative about his capabilities because there's evidence of it. And evidence of it in tough circumstances."
Pickett was a first-round draft pick of this team in 2022. So, it makes sense they're not ready to move on from him quite yet. After all, they're 14-10 in two seasons in his starts.
But he also doesn't need to just be handed the keys as the starter without someone to push him. And Rudolph showed he can do that – and perhaps more.
• The Steelers will have the 20th-overall pick in the first round of the 2024 NFL Draft.
Had they lost their final three games of the season to finish 7-10 instead of 10-7, they would have been picking 12th.
• Dale Lolley is co-host of "SNR Drive" on Steelers Nation Radio. Subscribe to the podcast here: Apple Podcast | iHeart Podcast
That's not an overly huge difference. And it wouldn't have offset the excitement that last weekend's playoff game brought to Steelers fans.
There was a genuine feeling the Steelers, given the way they played during their three-game losing streak, could beat the Bills.
It didn't work out. And that stinks. But making the playoffs always beats not making it.
But seeing your season end before you accomplish your goals is always difficult.
Tomlin would much rather be preparing to play a game this weekend than holding exit interviews with his team, making decisions about assistant coaches and beginning preparations for the 2024 NFL Draft, which will start in two weeks when the scouting world descends upon Mobile, Ala., for the Senior Bowl.
"There's not degrees of suck. It all sucks," Tomlin said. "I'd rather be working. The thought of going to Mobile turns my stomach. Not that I dislike Mobile, but I know what it's like when you're working and you're not in Mobile. It's a really good feeling to be in that tournament as the road gets narrow. And to be living out the things that you aspired to live out over the last 12-months."
• Cam Heyward said on his podcast, "Not Just Football," on Thursday that he's not ready to retire.
"I love playing football. I want to play football. I'm not retiring," Heyward said.
Of course, Heyward had been asked following the Steelers' loss to the Bills last Monday and again two days later what his plans were.
Much the same way it wasn't fair to ask Tomlin about his contract status minutes after a playoff loss, it's not fair to ask a player his intentions regarding doing something as life-changing in the minutes or even next couple of days after a painful loss.
But everyone has to know everything immediately in this day and age. There's a right and wrong way to go about these things.
Asking those kind of questions in the aftermath of a playoff loss is decidedly not the right place or time.
