Three Potential Landing Spots For Mike Tomlin [UPDATE]

The Pittsburgh Steelers were eliminated from the playoffs on Monday evening by Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills. Now Mike Tomlin's future appears to be in question after a bizarre exchange at his postgame press conference. The longtime Steelers head coach just up and left after he heard the beginning of a question asking him about his contract, which has one year left until it expires.

This sort of move isn't entirely out of character for Tomlin and this might've been more just grumpy Football Guy stuff than anything. Storming off the podium as soon as he gets a question unrelated to the game his team just played is a classic angry head coach move.

But it is an interesting reaction given there's been a surprising amount of noise over the last few weeks that Tomlin might be on the outs in Pittsburgh after scraping and clawing his way to another winning record and playoff appearance. It started two weeks ago, when Adam Schefter said on ESPN that some around the league believe Tomlin might pull a Sean Payton and just take a year off. Then, on Saturday, Mike Florio said the Steelers are interested in extending Tomlin but he's going to take stock and discuss what his future will look like with his family after the season-- something he always does, but it's different this time because he'll be entering the final year of his contract for the first time. His extensions have always been inked with multiple years left on the current deal.

As you can see there's no concrete intel out there suggesting which way Tomlin is leaning and all reporters are united in believing there's zero chance Pittsburgh would fire Tomlin. He'd have to leave on his own, which is a stronger possibility than ever before. The immediate future of the organization is cloudy after Kenny Pickett got benched down the stretch in favor of Mason Rudolph and the on-field issues from players like Diontae Johnson and George Pickens imply deeper issues within the building that we are not used to seeing play out in public from Tomlin teams.

If Tomlin did decide to abandon ship, he'd be a very popular man, standing out as an elite candidate even amongst the strongest free agent head coaching class in years. Here are the three landing spots that make the most sense for the long-tenured Steelers head coach.

Dallas Cowboys

There is legitimate reason to think Jerry Jones might actually prefer Tomlin over Bill Belichick and would go after him quite hard should he decide to leave Pittsburgh. Tomlin is obviously younger so he's a better long-term play, but more relevantly, Tomlin doesn't need full personnel control the way Belichick does. He's always had a GM to work with over his 16 years with the Steelers. Therefore this ends up a best-of-both-worlds situation for the Jones family; they land their all-time great head coach and still retain control of the roster and draft. The most obvious and natural home for Tomlin if he hits the open market in a timely manner, since the Cowboys will definitely move fast once they officially dismiss Mike McCarthy.

Los Angeles Chargers

Tomlin knows first-hand the margin of error a great quarterback provides. He enjoyed it for over a decade with Ben Roethlisberger then suffered without it for the last two seasons with Pickett, Rudolph, and Mitchell Trubisky taking turns under center. The Chargers have the best QB by far of all the open head coaching jobs, so it's only natural Tomlin might gravitate towards them. There was also a weird aspect of Adam Schefter's report from earlier this month-- the ESPN insider noted Tomlin's wife, Kiya Winston, is a fan of the city of Los Angeles. The Chargers' owners are not likely to outbid other teams for Tomlin's services but there may be enough drive on the coach's side to strike a deal if he has his sights set on Justin Herbert and the City of Angels.

Washington Commanders

This is the blankest slate available to potential head coaching candidates this offseason and that's what makes it so appealing. The new ownership group is more than happy to pay out the wazoo for competency so Tomlin could probably fill in his own salary on his contract. They have the No. 2 overall pick in the draft, ideally positioned to nab a quarterback of the future, and oodles of cap space. There isn't much downside in this job for a coach who doesn't mind a rebuild; they'll reach pantheon status within the fanbase if they bring the franchise back to respectability and they'll get a very long runway to do so as the post-Daniel Snyder owners attempt to establish stability in a notoriously unstable organization. A pretty good match for both sides if Tomlin doesn't mind putting his playoff record at stake.

UPDATE: Tomlin is staying in Pittsburgh, it seems. Keep this in mind for the next coaching cycle!