Hopefully Rudolph does well and potentially sets himself up as the next starting QB of the Steelers longer term. But what of the Roethlisberger/Tomlin era? Ben has already contemplated retirement before, and Tomlin sure seems to have a long leash. What will it take for sacred cow Mike Tomlin to be let go? Maybe another poor showing this season will do it.
After winning the SB with Bill Cowher/Dick LeBeau’s players 11 years ago, Tomlin hasn’t done much at all. One more SB appearance in 2011 and just one conference championship in
2016 when they were trashed by the Patriots. The Rooneys almost have a Mike Brown/Marvin X type relationship with Tomlin, it may take multiple losing seasons in a row before he’s removed, if that.
The Steelers pride themselves on being the only professional sports franchise that doesn't fire head coaches. Chuck Noll and Bill Cowher both retired. Tomlin is the third head coach over the past 51 seasons.
Mike Tomlin was a Rooney Rule hire, which makes him doubly the beneficiary of the Rooneys' reluctance to fire the coach. And although Tomlin has lots of critics due to his arrogance, terrible clock management and poor strategic decisions in general, and the tendency to see himself as another one of the (black) boys on the team, he also has a 125-68-1 regular season coaching mark and has never had a losing season, though several of his teams have underachieved compared to the talent on the roster, and he's not been successful in the playoffs since the early Super Bowl win; in particular the Patriots and Bill Belichick simply own Tomlin and the Steelers.
Local sports show host Mark Madden speculated a while back that Tomlin would retire (move on) when Big Ben retired, so if Ben's injury looks to be a career ender and the team decides to rebuild, there's a chance Tomlin resigns or is fired.