Art Rooney II, owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers, admitted that he didn’t expect Mike Tomlin to confirm that he would leave the team so soon. However, he had already suspected that something like this might happen.
“It was his decision. I will say that I wasn’t shocked, but I wasn’t expecting that conversation yesterday either. When you get to this stage of a career, he mentioned that he was nearer to the end than the beginning. So, you could see that coming. I can’t say that I was shocked.”
Rooney thanked Tomlin for winning a Super Bowl with the Steelers and noted that one of his greatest achievements was keeping the team competitive. However, the playoff win drought was starting to become a key source of pressure for fans.
Why did Mike Tomlin leave Steelers?
Art Rooney II confirmed that Mike Tomlin left the Steelers for family reasons. Although he didn’t want to give many details, the owner stated that he doesn’t believe the cause was poor results or the frustration of the people in Pittsburgh.
“I think that I’ll leave it to him to explain to you someday what all went into his decision. I think that, in my mind and the discussion we had, it was probably more of a family related decision than a football related decision, but, I don’t want to speak for Mike on that.”
So far, Tomlin has not publicly explained the reasons for his departure. It is most likely that he will not coach in 2026 and will take a role as a television analyst after his tenure with the Steelers.
Mike Tomlin’s contract with Steelers
Mike Tomlin had a contract with the Steelers through the 2027 season. For this reason, in a very important detail, Rooney also confirmed that he was willing to keep the head coach in his position for at least one more year.
“I’m not going to get into his contract at this point. I was certainly willing to take another run at it next year with Mike and that’s what I was expecting to talk about yesterday, but, obviously, it went in a different direction.”