Mike Tomlin’s 19-year reign as the Pittsburgh Steelers head coach ended around 2 PM EST this afternoon, at which time what we all suspected became official: This is the most unique NFL coaching carousel of all-time.
Not only are nine teams — more than one-quarter of the league — searching for a new head coach, but three of the exiled have a Super Bowl ring. In addition to Tomlin, who won it all with the Steelers following the 2008 season, Pete Carroll (2013 Super Bowl winner with the Seattle Seahawks) was fired by the Las Vegas Raiders on Jan. 5 while John Harbaugh was dismissed the next day by the Baltimore Ravens, whom he directed to a title in 2012.
This marks just the sixth time in NFL history that a season has ended with at least three head coaches possessing at least 100 victories have exited their positions. More remarkably, it’s only the third time in the Super Bowl season a trio of former Super Bowl-winning head coaches have departed at the same time.
But in 2008, Tony Dungy (Indianapolis Colts) and Mike Holmgren (Seattle Seahawks) retired, with Holmgren actually announcing his intentions prior to the season. Only Mike Shanahan (Denver Broncos) was fired and returned with another team (the less we say about his experience in Washington, the better).
While Carroll, who was the oldest coach in NFL history this year at age 74, seems unlikely to stroll a sideline again, Harbaugh, 63, is interviewing for just about every open gig this side of your high school alma mater and is all but certain to be the biggest hire of the off-season.
Conjecture has Tomlin, by far the youngest of the trio at 53, taking a year off to do some TV, which opens up the possibility he could follow his predecessor, Bill Cowher, who never returned to the sideline after retiring at age 49 and joining CBS following the 2006 season.
But Cowher, John Madden and Chuck Noll are the only Super Bowl-winning coaches to retire at 60 or younger and never return. So it would qualify as a pretty big surprise if Tomlin isn’t on a sideline by the opening week of the 2027 season at the latest.
Yet even with two likely Hall of Famers on the open market, it’s a good time to ask: Are Harbaugh and/or Tomlin going to have the success at their next stop that eluded them over their last decade-plus in Baltimore and Pittsburgh?
How Many Coaches Have Won Two Super Bowls?
That’d be a Blutarsky: Zero point zero. But Sean Payton, who won Super Bowl 45 with the New Orleans Saints, has a chance to cement his Hall of Fame credentials if he can steer the Denver Broncos to a title over the next four weeks.
Just two Super Bowl-winning coaches have even made it back to the big game with a second team. Holmgren won it all with the Packers in Super Bowl XXXI before his Seahawks fell to the Steelers (and Cowher) in Super Bowl XXXX. Bill Parcells got Gatorade showers with the New York Giants following victories in Super Bowl XXI and Super Bowl XXV but had to watch Holmgren ride off on his players’ shoulders in January 1997.
Parcells and Holmgren went for a title with a second team with Drew Bledsoe and Matt Hasselbeck as their quarterbacks. That’s two really good but not great quarterbacks, which underlines the biggest change in the NFL this century: If you don’t have a Hall of Famer lining up behind center, you’re almost certainly not going to win it all. This is a good time to remind everyone Bill Belichick went 224-65 in regular season games started by Tom Brady and 78-100 with anyone else at quarterback.
Tomlin opened his career by winning five of his first seven playoff games with a prime Ben Roethlisberger at quarterback. Did he become a worse coach when he finished his Pittsburgh stint by losing 10 out of 13 postseason games — including the last seven dating back to January 2017 — while sending out whatever was left of Roethlisberger along with Kenny Pickett (2022), Russell Wilson (2024) and Aaron Rodgers (last night) to play the most important position in sports?
Likewise, was Harbaugh a genius when Joe Flacco played as if he was having an out-of-body experience during the 2012 postseason (1,140 yards, 11 touchdowns and no interceptions over four games) and a moron when Lamar Jackson couldn’t match his regular season success in January?
The question we — not to mention Harbaugh and Tomlin — really should be asking: Is there a team out there who is searching for a coach this year or might be searching for a coach next year who has a Super Bowl-caliber quarterback in place?
Other than the Ravens, this year’s vacancies don’t have anything close to a potential franchise quarterback in place. New York Giants fans are excited about Jaxson Dart, but his ceiling depends on his ability to avoid injury with his admittedly fun backyard style of play. Maybe Cam Ward becomes The Guy for the Tennessee Titans, or maybe Fernando Mendoza turns around the Las Vegas Raiders. Other than that? It’s a whole lot of hoping against hope you can still win by hiding the quarterback.
Tomlin might see a different landscape next year if the Buffalo Bills and/or Green Bay Packers can’t break through with Josh Allen and Jordan Love or if Nick Siranni pays the price following another flop by Jalen Hurts and the Philadelphia Eagles. Then again, by the first week of the 2027 season, Allen will be 31, Hurts will have six seasons worth of tush pushing wear and tear and Love, in this scenario, will be 29 and still largely unproven.
And if none of those teams make a change? Well, the New York Jets might need a coach. And a quarterback. Harbaugh and Tomlin are bound for the Hall of Fame, but like everyone else who has won a Super Bowl with one team but not a second, they’re likely to find the path even more challenging at their next stop.
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