It's never on the "hot seat" because the Steelers management decided many many decades ago to not play the "what have you done for me lately" game with coaches that most other teams play. For better or worse, they never give any serious consideration to firing a coach. They just let that coach coach until he decides not to anymore. The media will occasionally talk about if a Steelers coach SHOULD be on the hot seat, but even they don't ever say that any of them truly are. Even during the few years that Cowher teams didn't make the playoffs, the most you got were some articles about "could this be the year that the Steelers fire the coach if the Steelers don't make the playoffs?" that were essentially nothing more than click-bait in the years before click-bait was a thing.
- ScienceJesus

And I'm here to say that's dumb. The Steelers org is loyal to a fault. Tomlin is not a Super Bowl caliber coach on his own. We won in 2007 on the backs of Arians and Lebeau and the team Cowher built. Well now this is Tomlin's team and he ran out Arians and Lebeau.

Would love that, but its not realistic. For whatever reason, Tomlin's seat never seems to get hot and no coach is going to get fired after making it to the AFC Championship game? Why do both of my football teams have bad coaches that will never be fired?
- Victoro311

I am a steelers/ lions fan .frigin fire em all

And I'm here to say that's dumb. The Steelers org is loyal to a fault. Tomlin is not a Super Bowl caliber coach on his own. We won in 2007 on the backs of Arians and Lebeau and the team Cowher built. Well now this is Tomlin's team and he ran out Arians and Lebeau.
- Victoro311

It's brutal. NE's offense is built to shred zone defenses. So what do the Steelers do? Rush 3 or 4 and drop back in zone the ENTIRE game. They couldn't figure out what to do when Bell got hurt. It's simple.. get 84 involved. Offensive playcalling was a nightmare. A god damn fade on 4th down to a tight end who just ran outta bounds the play before? AND Dropped a TD pass in the 2nd Quarter?! Terrible. Until they find a secondary, they'll never get over that hump.

And I'm here to say that's dumb. The Steelers org is loyal to a fault. Tomlin is not a Super Bowl caliber coach on his own. We won in 2007 on the backs of Arians and Lebeau and the team Cowher built. Well now this is Tomlin's team and he ran out Arians and Lebeau.
- Victoro311

Oh, I definitely don't agree with their loyal-to-a-fault mentality. I'm just saying "it'll never happen". Sad as it might be. I agree with everything you just said.

And I'm here to say that's dumb. The Steelers org is loyal to a fault. Tomlin is not a Super Bowl caliber coach on his own. We won in 2007 on the backs of Arians and Lebeau and the team Cowher built. Well now this is Tomlin's team and he ran out Arians and Lebeau.
- Victoro311

You are really going way too far.

When you say Tomlin isn't a Super Bowl Caliber coach you are basically saying he isn't Belichick. There are a lot of coaches worse than Tomlin. There's probably only one coach significantly better than Tomlin. I can't give a perfect read on Tomlin because he's had the most important piece his entire career in a franchise QB. But he's certainly a league average coach. Tomlin also has a strong organization behind him. Making 7 post season appearances (10 seasons) and a .644 career winning percentage is impressive even while having a franchise QB/strong organization. He's above average.

Agree the zone defense didn't make much sense yesterday. Not sneaking Big Ben on the goal line didn't make sense. He's had some nutty decisions all year, but overall he does something right. Player development has been pretty good of late. Can fault the lack of secondary receivers in this game, but you can't plan for everything - Bryant, wheaton, bell, green all out of the game and Coates is a failure at player development (granted only a late 3rd round pick).

I'm just going to be rational after a big loss. Tomlin has his warts, but he's still above average. I can't name another coach that isn't Belichick that is a slam dunk replacement (if we could hire anyone we wanted). I'd probably take Carroll over him too, but it isn't a long list.

It's brutal. NE's offense is built to shred zone defenses. So what do the Steelers do? Rush 3 or 4 and drop back in zone the ENTIRE game. They couldn't figure out what to do when Bell got hurt. It's simple.. get 84 involved. Offensive playcalling was a nightmare. A god damn fade on 4th down to a tight end who just ran outta bounds the play before? AND Dropped a TD pass in the 2nd Quarter?! Terrible. Until they find a secondary, they'll never get over that hump.
- j.boyd919

Defense was silly to me. I'm not a football insider by any means, but how realistic is it to make major scheme changes for one big game. I would assume there are technique issues and draft strategy built up over years tilted towards you scheme. To swap to a man base for one game would give you second rate defenders in that scheme. That would be my concern. Maybe we should have tilted scheme a long time ago to play against the Patriots as the prime threat from our conference.

Defense was silly to me. I'm not a football insider by any means, but how realistic is it to make major scheme changes for one big game. I would assume there are technique issues and draft strategy built up over years tilted towards you scheme. To swap to a man base for one game would give you second rate defenders in that scheme. That would be my concern. Maybe we should have tilted scheme a long time ago to play against the Patriots as the prime threat from our conference.
- sditulli

Not necessarily the zone that was the biggest problem, they stopped trying to bring pressure. Sending 3 or 4 guys every down, while dropping the rest in the coverage. They tried that at the beginning of the season and it sucked. From week 9 out they recorded 30 sacks (an NFL best in that time frame). Against the Pats, they completely abandoned what made them so successful. Give the best QB in history all the time in the world and he's gonna shred you.

Defense was silly to me. I'm not a football insider by any means, but how realistic is it to make major scheme changes for one big game. I would assume there are technique issues and draft strategy built up over years tilted towards you scheme. To swap to a man base for one game would give you second rate defenders in that scheme. That would be my concern. Maybe we should have tilted scheme a long time ago to play against the Patriots as the prime threat from our conference.
- sditulli

Have you read DK's column about this exact thing today? Essentially, they can do it & have done it in the past (a full-scale change in approach for a particular opponent) with success. And it was against the Patriots a few years ago with LeBeau. But they simply elected not to this time (and instead stuck with the exact same scheme that had failed them 8 of 11 times previously). And they had been playing a more man-on-man system in the past 8 weeks but elected to veer away from that this week & go back to the zone scheme without a strong pass rush that had been not working in the first 9 games of the season. It was an inexplicable change that made zero sense & was a complete failure in coaching after 9 weeks of solid & improved coaching & schemes.

Not necessarily the zone that was the biggest problem, they stopped trying to bring pressure. Sending 3 or 4 guys every down, while dropping the rest in the coverage. They tried that at the beginning of the season and it sucked. From week 9 out they recorded 30 sacks (an NFL best in that time frame). Against the Pats, they completely abandoned what made them so successful. Give the best QB in history all the time in the world and he's gonna shred you.
- j.boyd919

I think the Pats are just a terrible matchup for the Steelers. Offense designed to destroy our defense. In theory if you completely stop the run (which we did) without stacking the box you should be able to win with bend but don't break zone scheme. Puts you in a situation where big plays shouldn't happen and you need one bad throw/bad read/dropped catch to get off the field. But brady is just too accurate and finds his guy to keep drives going. Or hits 6-7 yard passes early on a drive to get 3rd and short.

We gave up 17 in the first half. Makes me think the problem wasn't the level of pressure, but that Brady is a zone killer.

I see a lot of positives for next year, but slaying the Pats might just be a team we are not built to do. Odd thing about football is the best team might not always win. Sometimes a particular team is built that exposes the weakness of your team. Our defense might be great against most offenses but awful against the Pats while an equal or lesser defense that is better in man concepts could survive.

Team looks great going into next year as long as Ben doesn't decline. Bryant could be a game changer for the offense next year. If Green is healthy adds a lot too (wouldn't be surprised if he gets cut/retires). The young defenders all get a year wiser.