Mike Tomlin stepping down as Steelers coach won't deter Giants' pursuit of John Harbaugh
Mike Tomlin coaches his final game with the Steelers at Acrisure Stadium on Monday, Jan. 12, 2026, against the Houston Texans. Credit: Getty Images/Joe Sargent
Another Tuesday, another Super Bowl-winning coach added to the mix as the hiring cycle continues to spin at a furious warp pace.
This time it was Mike Tomlin who stepped down from his job with the Steelers, exactly seven days after John Harbaugh was fired by the Ravens last week.
For those keeping track at home that makes three championship coaches who have now left or been asked to leave their 2025 team so far this month – Tomlin, Harbaugh and Pete Carroll. Throw Mike McCarthy and his Lombardi Trophy into the group and that gives us four of the top 16 head coaches in NFL history in terms of regular-season victories who are either leaving or in search of jobs during what was supposed to be a rather dull and uneventful merry-go-round just a few weeks ago. Kevin Stefanski, the two-time NFL Coach of the Year, suddenly looks rather underdressed in this crowd.
Tomlin’s future is a bit murkier than the others’, however. Because he resigned the Steelers still hold his rights so any team that would want him on their sideline for the 2026 season would likely have to compensate the Steelers with some draft capital. And there is no definitive answer on whether that is even something Tomlin wants.
Yapping in a television studio once a week is a far more relaxing gig than coaching an NFL team 24/7 and that may appeal to him for a year – or two – until he recharges and decides to return. Then again his predecessor in Pittsburgh, Bill Cowher, tried that trajectory and although there were some flirtations he never came back to the game. He still looks happy each time that big chin pops up on the screen.
“This organization has been a huge part of my life for many years, and it has been an absolute honor to lead this team,” Tomlin said in a statement, thanking the team’s ownership and fans for their support.
Pittsburgh hired Tomlin in 2007, a year later he won the Super Bowl, and he entered the 2025 season as the longest-tenured head coach in the league. That title now belongs to Andy Reid in Kansas City. In his 19 seasons Tomlin never finished with a losing record.
This bombshell news story didn’t cause much of a ripple in the Giants’ plans, though. Not like the last one.
Unlike last week when they were working their phones in the minutes after the Harbaugh announcement to see if they could get in on the ground floor of his uncertain future, the Tomlin resignation did not seem to upend their short list. And while they interviewed McCarthy on Tuesday it is becoming more obvious by the day that their short list is even shorter than previously believed.
Reports from The Athletic and others that John Mara, Chris Mara, Joe Schoen and Steve Tisch have been falling over themselves to land him are understandable. There have even been reports that Eli Manning and recently-canned coach Brian Daboll have been in touch with Harbaugh to laud the organization and its young quarterback, Jaxson Dart. Harbaugh would give the Giants exactly what they need – or at least what they think they need – in terms of gravitas, accountability and culture-building from the now vacant chair in which Bill Parcells and Tom Coughlin once sat.
Harbaugh seems intrigued by the Giants, too. They, the Titans and the Falcons appear to be the top contenders for his services.
So where does this Tomlin development fit into the Giants’ plans? It doesn’t hurt. It gives other teams other options and if his sudden availability distracts the Falcons or Dolphins or Titans from Harbaugh enough for the Giants to get their guy, it will certainly have helped.
For Giants fans who are used to disappointment, this is starting to feel a little like the offseason “Hard Knocks” that the Giants participated in during which they spent the spring drooling over potential quarterbacks including last year’s Rookie of the Year Jayden Daniels and this year’s possible MVP Drake Maye only to wind up with no one at that position (although they did come away with Malik Nabers in that draft). When we saw that series on television it was after it all went down and we already knew the team was going to be saddled with Daniel Jones for at least one more season. This drama is playing out in real time with little peeks behind the curtain to keep us all riveted.
If the Giants wind up having to hire someone other than Harbaugh it may not be awful and it may actually help them in the long term (see: Nabers). As noted, there are a lot of very qualified, intriguing, capable candidates available who could potentially fix the Giants. There is also something to be said about the Giants latching onto the idea of a 63-year-old coach who has been with one organization most of the past two decades and whose greatest accomplishment in his profession took place at the end of the 2012 season… a year after the Giants won their last title.
At a time when it feels like the league is starting to veer toward younger, more insightful and creative head coaches rather than the traditional firm fists that once ruled the sport – seven of the eight still alive in the playoffs are 51 or younger with less than a decade of experience; Sean Payton is the outlier – it’s fair to question if the Giants are trying to recapture the wrong era. As Winston Churchill once said, generals are always preparing to fight the last war, not the next one. Maybe the Giants are, too.
But such debates aside, we are quickly getting to the point where it will feel like a failure, given the efforts and resources that have been put toward the objective, if Harbaugh is not the next head coach of the Giants.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
