'We all love Coach T': Players voice support for Steelers coach Mike Tomlin despite collapse

After a late-season collapse ended with another one-and-done playoff performance, the Pittsburgh Steelers know changes are coming. Where frustrated fans want that to start with Mike Tomlin, the team’s most decorated player voiced support for the embattled coach.

As the Steelers cleaned out their lockers Monday at UPMC Rooney Sports Complex on the South Side, All-Pro outside linebacker T.J. Watt said NFL Films cameras couldn’t capture the gravity of Tomlin’s organizational impact in the HBO in-season series “Hard Knocks” and suggested that the blame for their failures is more widespread.

“I know they don’t show what this guy means to this place, from a personal level to a team level,” Watt said. “We need to perform better. I’m not saying we need to perform better for him; we need to perform better for everybody. This city deserves it, this team deserves it, the guys in this locker room, we deserve it.”

The Steelers were still reeling and searching for answers to explain how a team that started 10-3 and were one win from clinching the AFC North Division title ended on a five-game losing streak following their 28-14 wild-card playoff loss at the archrival Baltimore Ravens.

The defeat extended to eight years the Steelers’ run of postseason futility under Tomlin. That’s the Steelers’ longest drought in the Super Bowl era, which has caused NFL analysts and Steelers fans to suggest that it’s time for team chairman Art Rooney II to fire Tomlin. The Steelers have had only three head coaches since 1969, with Chuck Noll winning four Super Bowls in the 1970s and Bill Cowher adding another in 2005.

Tomlin led the Steelers to the Super Bowl XLIII championship over the Arizona Cardinals in 2008, his second season, and another appearance in Super Bowl XLV that ended with a loss to the Green Bay Packers. But the Steelers haven’t won a playoff game under Tomlin since a divisional-round win at Kansas City in January 2016.

Still, players expressed their belief in Tomlin, who completed his 18th season as Steelers head coach. Tomlin has a career record of 183-107-2 — 10 victories shy of tying Noll for most in franchise history — and the best winning percentage (.630) of any Steelers coach, though his eight postseason wins trail both Noll (16) and Cowher (12).

“I have the utmost faith in the coaching staff,” tight end Pat Freiermuth said. “Without Coach T, we wouldn’t have been able to have been in the playoffs. We all love Coach T. He’s a great leader, a great coach. I wish you guys could be in those meetings. I think a lot of people see those ‘Hard Knocks’ meetings. There’s a lot of good ball being talked about.”

Freiermuth claimed that the Steelers’ shortcomings in the postseason are “collective,” blaming not the schemes but the execution of the plays.

“Coach got to take criticism, players got to take criticism and there’s obviously going to be criticism when we close the season on a five-game losing streak, so that’s warranted,” Freiermuth said. “We’ve got to figure out ways, especially in the offseason and next season, to get the train rolling.”

Veteran free agent quarterback Russell Wilson wants to remain on that train. In expressing his hope to return to the Steelers next season, Wilson also volunteered his appreciation for Tomlin.

“I love Coach Tomlin,” Wilson said. “I love who he is.”