Steelers Head Coach Mike Tomlin has resigned after another first-round playoff exit and some fan discontent. But Tomlin’s legacy as one of the Steelers’ great coaches has been sealed.

Tomlin has had a legendary 19-year run with the Steelers, with every single one of his seasons landing at .500 or above. He won a Super Bowl in 2009 and became the youngest coach to do so at the time.

Tomlin has had one of the best coaching tenures of all time. Due to his consistency and longevity, he joins Bill Cowher and Chuck Noll as the only three coaches the Steelers have had since 1969.

Tomlin was a great recruiter for the Steelers, bringing in players like Aaron Rodgers, Myles Jack, Joe Haden, and Russell Wilson. Only recently has Tomlin struggled to develop new draft picks and turn them into stars as he did with Le’Veon Bell, who was one of the Steelers’ most valuable players.

Through Tomlin’s career, he got the opportunity to coach some big-name players, including Ben Roethlisberger, Antonio Brown, and Hines Ward, and he also managed to create stars like T.J. Watt and Jarvis Jones. 

Though Tomlin has had a legendary career in Pittsburgh, it was time for him to leave. The Steelers have not won a playoff game in nine years, and the last time the Steelers had more than 10 wins was the 2020 season, which ended in a ball of fire.

Tomlin was also a defensive mastermind, as the majority of his teams were dominant on the defensive side of the ball. But they often lacked on the offensive side when they were missing stars.

Now that Tomlin’s gone, Pittsburgh will likely take a step back next year and have a worse record than fans are used to.  With about 200 career wins, Tomlin will be hard to replace as the Pittsburgh head coach, and if other teams want to hire him they will have to trade with the Steelers to obtain him.

Tomlin is not the only head coach in the AFC North to leave their team: John Harbaugh, formerly of the Ravens, and Kevin Stefanski, former Browns coach, were fired this offseason. Harbaugh reportedly is already onto his next team as he is finalizing a deal with the Giants, while Stefanski is still looking for a new job.

The most popular options to replace Tomlin are Brian Flores (Vikings defensive coordinator), Marcus Freeman (Notre Dame head coach), Chris Shula (Rams defensive coordinator), and Jesse Minter (Chargers defensive coordinator) because their coaching styles are similar to Tomlin’s when he was younger.

But without a doubt, Tomlin is a Hall of Fame coach who had a legendary career in Pittsburgh that will not go unnoticed.