The Pittsburgh Steelers are synonymous with January football excellence, yet a quiet frost has settled over the Steel City’s playoff legacy. For a franchise built on a foundation of Super Bowl rings, the postseason landscape feels empty.
It has been nearly a decade since Mike Tomlin led his squad to a playoff handshake that ended in celebration. While the head coach maintains his legendary streak of winning seasons, the victories have become a memory.
The last time the Terrible Towels waved for a postseason win, the NFL looked vastly different. Since that cold night, the road to the Lombardi Trophy has been a series of frustrating exits, leaving a storied fan base waiting for a new spark.
Steelers’ most recent playoff win in the Mike Tomlin era
The most recent time the Pittsburgh Steelers actually won a playoff game under head coach Mike Tomlin was way back in the 2016 NFL season, with the games themselves played in 2017.
That year Pittsburgh not only claimed a Wild Card victory but followed it up with an 18–16 Divisional Round triumph over the Kansas City Chiefs on January 15, marking their last win in postseason play under Mike Tomlin’s tenure.
Jordan Berry #4 of the Pittsburgh Steelers with his teammates in 2017 (Source: Justin K. Aller/Getty Images)
Since that postseason run, where they showed flashes of their familiar grit and grind football, the narrative has shifted into something more sobering for fans. In the seasons that followed, they have been unable to replicate that success, going winless in the postseason and dropping multiple Wild Card games in succession.
This drought has stretched through several quarterback eras and roster retools, leaving what was once a competitive, feared AFC contender searching for answers each January.
While Tomlin’s regular-season consistency (never posting a losing record over nearly two decades) remains impressive, the elusive playoff breakthrough — last seen in that 2016 run — has become one of the defining storylines of his later years in Pittsburgh.
