Mike Tomlin isn’t just hearing “Fire Tomlin!” chants from Steelers fans. A couple of the franchise’s greatest players are saying Pittsburgh needs to make a coaching change.
The NFL’s longest-tenured coach has been under heavy criticism and even Ben Roethlisberger and James Harrison have joined in.
“Coach Tomlin’s been here a long time,” Roethlisberger said on his “Footbahlin with Ben Roethlisberger” podcast this week. “You’d give him a statue, whatever you’ve got to do, because he deserves it, he’s earned it. But it’s time to find that next guy. Who’s that next guy that could be here for the next 20 years?”
Strong comments from the two-time Super Bowl champion quarterback who played 15 seasons for Tomlin before retiring in January 2022.
Tomlin led the Steelers to a Super Bowl title in his second season but hasn’t returned to the AFC championship game since 2010. He’s never had a losing season in 19 years in Pittsburgh but is 0-5 in the playoffs since 2016.
The Steelers (6-6) are playing for first place in the AFC North against the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday yet critics are piling on because they’ve lost five of seven and don’t seem like a team that has a chance of making a playoff run.
Harrison, a two-time All-Pro linebacker who played parts of 10 seasons for Tomlin, was harsher than Roethlisberger.
“I have never been a person (who) thought Coach Tomlin was a great coach,” Harrison said on his “Deebo and Joe” podcast. “I thought he was a good (coach). ... A good coach gets you to play to your potential. And right now, the players we have on that team I have seen play, they’re not playing up to their potential. A great coach gets you to play to your potential.”
It’s rare to hear accomplished players be this critical of their former head coach, especially someone as respected as Tomlin. His impressive resume would help him quickly land another job if he left Pittsburgh.
Roethlisberger suggested Penn State would be an ideal fit for the 53-year-old Tomlin.
“You know what he would do in Penn State? He would probably go win national championships, because he’s a great recruiter,” Roethlisberger said.
The Steelers have only had three coaches since 1969. Chuck Noll led them to four Super Bowl titles in 23 years. Bill Cowher won a Super Bowl in his 14th of 15 seasons. Both coaches are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Tomlin is 189-113-2 with one Lombardi trophy. He should get a gold jacket when he’s finished coaching.
Maybe his message has grown stale in Pittsburgh. Perhaps he needs a fresh start. Sometimes a change of scenery works out for an organization and a coach.
Andy Reid was fired by the Eagles in 2012 after winning more games than any coach in franchise history because he couldn’t win a Super Bowl. He went right to Kansas City and has won three rings with the Chiefs. Meanwhile, Philadelphia has won two Super Bowls with two coaches — Doug Pederson and Nick Sirianni — since Reid left.
“Here’s what you don’t do: You don’t fire a guy like Coach Tomlin,” Roethlisberger said. “He’s a Hall of Fame head coach, he’s respected. What you do is you come to an understanding and agreement, and it’s like, ‘Hey, listen, I think it’s probably best for both of us.’
“You go, ‘Hey, Coach, listen, it’s probably best for all parties involved, let’s start over.’ It happened with Chuck Noll, it happened with Coach Cowher.”
Roethlisberger is right. The Steelers shouldn’t fire Tomlin. There’s plenty of football remaining this season. If Pittsburgh misses the playoffs or goes one-and-done, a change could make sense for both sides.
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Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin stands on the sideline during the first half of an NFL football game against the Buffalo Bills Sunday, Nov. 30, 2025, in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin walks on the sideline during the first half of an NFL football game against the Chicago Bears, Sunday, Nov. 23, 2025, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)
Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin meets with reporters following an NFL football game against the Chicago Bears, Sunday, Nov. 23, 2025, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)
DURHAM, N.C. (AP) — Duke had just played with its best start-to-finish level of competitive fight in an opening month gone awry, only to end up with another loss to a top-flight opponent in No. 5 LSU.
Senior guard Ashlon Jackson was clinging to the idea that the struggles could pay off in the long term.
“We're in the mud right now,” Jackson said softly.
She might as well have been talking for the entire Atlantic Coast Conference in women's basketball.
The preseason ACC favorite Blue Devils are 3-6. The league has no top-10 teams in the AP Top 25 poll in a season for the first time in nearly a quarter-century. And it wrapped up a 13-3 loss in the ACC/SEC Challenge on Thursday night, including all three matchups involving its ranked teams in No. 11 North Carolina, No. 18 Notre Dame and No. 22 Louisville.
Of that trio, the Cardinals nearly upset No. 3 South Carolina, losing 79-77 at home.
“I know we have good players in our leagues, we have good teams,” Duke coach Kara Lawson said after Thursday night's 93-77 loss to LSU. “For (Duke), we haven't had the start that we've wanted. It's our job to change it.”
This isn't the position anyone expected for the ACC, which had a different team reach the Final Four in 2022, 2023 and 2024 while the Blue Devils reached last year's NCAA Elite Eight after winning their first ACC Tournament title since 2013. The league opened this year with five AP Top 25 teams, headlined by the North Carolina-based “Triangle” schools of Duke at No. 7, N.C. State at No. 9 and UNC at No. 11.
And the ACC had fielded at least one top-10 team in every AP Top 25 poll dating to December 2001, a run of 453 consecutive polls.
Yet that streak streak ended by mid-November, leaving the Tar Heels — who lost 79-64 at No. 2 Texas on Thursday night — as the league's highest-ranked team for three straight weeks from outside the top 10.
The Blue Devils opened with a loss to Baylor in Paris, followed shortly after by a loss to West Virginia in which the Mountaineers finished with just five players due to numerous ejections to knock the Blue Devils out of the AP poll. The Wolfpack, who lost Wednesday in overtime at No. 9 Oklahoma, fell out this week in a season that included a home loss to unranked Rhode Island.
“I feel like we're a better team than people think, I feel like our league's better,” UNC coach Courtney Banghart said before the Texas game. "You could say, 'Well there's a couple of results that don't show that.' ... I always say: `Let's see when it's all said and done, who's advanced (in the NCAAs), how many teams did you send to each round, and what that looks like.'
“As someone who has lived in the ACC now with these coaches and players, we'll be just fine. The league will be just fine.”
Maybe so. But the trajectory of the annual SEC tussle is heading in the wrong direction: from the teams splitting 14 games in 2023 to the SEC winning 10-6 last year and now this year.
“13-3 SEC? I'm glad we're one of the 13,” LSU coach Kim Mulkey said about the Duke win, adding later: “We didn't have to have an ACC Challenge to figure out how tough our league is.”
The Blue Devils' plight in Durham has stood out in particular among the ACC's opening-month hiccups.
They entered having lost three straight games, the past two coming in blowouts to No. 3 South Carolina and No. 4 UCLA. And they faced the unenviable test of slowing LSU's offense, which had scored 100+ points in each of its first eight games to set an NCAA record.
Duke started the game on a 14-1 run as LSU sputtered, only to see the Tigers began to kick into gear once they stopped committing turnovers. A 31-point second quarter helped push LSU into control, with LSU shooting 59.7% for the game, leading by 21 points and vocally celebrating through the final minutes on the Blue Devils' Cameron Indoor Stadium homecourt.
Now Duke heads to Virginia Tech on Sunday to open league play, a first step toward getting its season back on course.
“I think we can grow into a really good team," Lawson said. "That's what we're focused on doing. I haven't watched the other ACC teams to be able to tell you, but I would venture to say that a lot of them can grow into really good teams, too.”
Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here and here (AP News mobile app). AP women’s college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-womens-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/womens-college-basketball
Louisville forward Anaya Hardy (9) attempts to block a shot-attempt by South Carolina center Madina Okot (11) during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game in Louisville, Ky., Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)
