Mike Tomlin understands the nature of the business. Few coaches in the NFL know it better. Especially one who has spent nearly two decades patrolling the same sideline, absorbing every high and low that comes with leading the Pittsburgh Steelers. A roller-coaster season did not deter the longest-tenured head coach in the league from securing his 19th consecutive winning season, but it did land him—once again—squarely in the ever-churning “firing pool.”
Then John Harbaugh was let go in Baltimore.
The news hit differently. Not because it was shocking, but because of what it symbolized. If Harbaugh—a Super Bowl champion and Tomlin’s fiercest rival—could be dismissed, then no résumé was untouchable.