SAD NEWS FOR STEELERS COACH SEE...MORE.......

As I go through and organize every one of your comments for the weekly Sound-Off, I’m seeing one recurring theme far too often: “Trade Tomlin.”

This seems to me to be the refined version of the informal FAHR TAWMLIM conversation that has been rife in these kinds of online forums for the better part of, well, let’s say, Mike Tomlin’s time as the Steelers head coach. It’s an interesting turn of events, and one grounded in common sense and logic: if it’s widely believed—or, more accurately, appears to indicate—that Tomlin and the Steelers will part ways at some point this offseason, and possibly even next offseason when his current contract expires, then it makes more sense to use his proven ability to obtain something in return than to fire him. and receiving nothing in return.

For me, as a nominal blogger writing for disposable gambling revenue and for whom the inner workings of NFL administration could as well be particle physics, this makes sense. Do you know of anyone else who would come to the same conclusion—that the Steelers desire value in exchange for a commodity they might eventually decide to discard—about this? Any other NFL team interested in hiring Tomlin’s services would contact that front office.

Another professional football team, made up of a plethora of business and football operations specialists, is not going to realistically expect to trade first-round draft picks for a head coach whose contract is up in one year. I believe

We can safely put an end to this story and bury it deep. For the most part, because no team will give the Steelers a first-round draft pick in return for Mike Tomlin, the organization will not trade Tomlin for one.

Trades for head coaches are extremely rare (this page details about a half-dozen such trades over the last 25ish years), and when they do occur, there’s usually some sort of special circumstance that justifies such a big swing. I wrote about this in a bit more detail in the last Sound-Off column. As an example, the Broncos made a major investment prior to the 2022 season by signing Nathaniel Hackett in an attempt to lure Aaron Rodgers, but they ultimately “settled.”