Mike Tomlin held his season-ending news conference yesterday, and the Steelers coach is already working on the challenges of putting together next year’s team, while dissecting what went wrong this season. Tomlin and General Manager Kevin Colbert must rebuild a team that at the moment has fifteen unrestricted free agents and question marks in most of its position rooms.
One of the question marks involves Colbert, who has hinted at retirement and continues to work – at his choice – under one-year contracts. Tomlin says he will let Colbert comment on his personal plans, but right now they are already discussing their off-season scouting plans.
Responding to a question about whether the Steelers offense was limited by the number of young, inexperienced players this season, Tomlin said they worked with the players they had available to them.
The biggest Steelers question mark is quarterback. Ben Roethlisberger won’t be there next season and this will be the first quarterback search Tomlin has ever done. He’s looking forward to it.
The coach says player feedback is important to him as he holds exit interviews with each team member. But he says certain players’ opinions carry more weight than others.
Tomlin says he is “optimistic” that Matt Canada can do the job if he is brought back as offensive coordinator but acknowledged that defensive coordinator Keith Butler is thinking about retirement. Tomlin said he is not anticipating other coaching staff changes but he must name a new offensive line coach and assistant.
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