PITTSBURGH — The Steelers have one of the best head-coaching jobs on the market to offer any coach who applies to fill the vacancy left by Mike Tomlin. And don't let anyone tell you otherwise, as it might actually be the best job on the market once it is examined closely.

In the wake of Tomlin stepping down as Steelers head coach, there have been a couple of silly narratives that have arrived, and I can't quite understand how so many people can be so clueless and wrong about it.

The main argument has been that the Steelers are going to find out how hard life is without Tomlin, especially if they don't hire the right coach. This is an organization that replaced a legendary four-time Super Bowl champion with a Hall of Famer that won a Super Bowl in Bill Cowher to Tomlin, who never had a losing season and won a Super Bowl.

In other words, they have an incredible track record of hiring great head coaches, and if you look at their track record of hiring general managers, it is pretty much the same.

And this idea that the Steelers could go into the dark days because they had to replace Tomlin is ridiculous, as well. It completely discounts all of the reasons why the last three coaches have all been successful.

It is true they have hired good coaches, but a lot of organizations hire good coaches every year who get fired three or four years later. It isn't that they forgot how to coach; it was either they went to a bad organization or they inherited a terrible roster and made poor decisions to rebuild it.

The structure of the Steelers organization is such that it is a place that is set up for a coach to succeed. It has a very defined front office, a very defined mission statement, and an owner who is invested but trusts the people he has hired.

Omar Khan is one of the smartest GMs in the NFL and has a very clear plan and vision for how to build a roster, and he has proven he will work hand-in-hand with his coach. Andy Weidl is an excellent personnel guy, and they have some really good scouts.

All of these people who act like the Steelers were lucky to have Tomlin have it twisted. Ask yourself this — if Tomlin's first job was with the Jets, Cardinals, Raiders or any of these teams that always seem to be at the bottom of the barrel, would he still be there 19 years later without a losing season?

I suppose the answer is maybe, but more than likely, he would have been fired within four years or so. And the reason is those are bad organizations that don't have the right structure, don't have everyone on the same page, and thus they are set up for the coach to fail.

Tomlin now has the luxury of taking one of the "good jobs" because he is the biggest name on the market, but when he was hired, he was a nobody from nowhere the Rooneys saw something in and hired. But if he didn't get hired by the Steelers, he would have had to take his first job elsewhere because he wasn't in position to have leverage.

That brings me to this next item. When people ask who they can get to replace him, the answer is very simple: How about the next Mike Tomlin? In other words, there are a lot of really good young coaches, and some of them are not very well known. But that doesn't mean they won't do a great job.

I could have given a piece of paper to 1,000 Steelers fans and said, "Write down your top 10 names for who you want to replace Bill Cowher," and I would bet of the 10,000 names written down, not one would have named Tomlin.

The Steelers don't need to hire Andy Reid or Bill Belichick to replace Tomlin with a really good coach. They just need to do the due diligence to make sure they hire someone who checks all of their boxes.

One other piece of this idea that the Steelers job is not very good is that the roster needs a lot of work and there is no quarterback in place.

They cite the Ravens as a much better spot because of the presence of Lamar Jackson, and that is a bit laughable because he is an extremely expensive player who may already be on the decline because of all the injuries he has had in recent years. The cliff for those running quarterbacks is usually steep because once their dynamic ability to make plays with their legs goes, they become a lot less scary to defenses.

It is true the Steelers have some work to do on the roster, and the next coach won't inherit one that is as good as the one Tomlin inherited. It is actually not even close.

There is no question Tomlin did a great job with the team he inherited, and also no question that he inherited a Super Bowl-winning team. And Cowher did just fine with "Cowhers players," considering he had Ben Roethlisberger for three seasons, went 15-1 and got to the AFC title game in his rookie year and won the Super Bowl in his second season.

The final season they went 8-8, and that was almost 100% because Roethlisberger was in a serious motorcycle accident and then needed an appendix surgery and was never fully healthy until late in the season when it was already lost.

The point is it is OK to acknowledge that both Cowher and Tomlin did a great job in those first seven seasons with Roethlisberger. And yes, Tomlin inherited a much better team and roster than he is handing off.

But the Steelers are loaded with draft picks. They do have a lot of really good young players already on defense. And the offensive line is mostly rebuilt (four starters were rookies or second-year guys) and some good veterans that are signed for a few more years.

It is true that the Steelers have to make a decision about T.J. Watt to free up cap space, but they could cut him or trade him and it wouldn't be nearly as devastating as some believe. Cam Heyward might retir,e but he is signed already through next season at a very cap-friendly number.

The Steelers roster will need to be rebuilt, but their drafts under Khan have been really good, and they have plenty of picks to either use to replenish the roster or trade, maybe even for a quarterback.

The sky is not falling for the Steelers, and their track record suggests they are going to be able to put a competitive team on the field for 2026 even if they don't find their quarterback of the future in the offseason.

Beyond that is the fact that Rooney learned from his dad and grandad and believes in stability, so the new coach will have the time to get the roster in place to go win another Super Bowl.

One last thing about any coach who walks into the building to interview for the job is the history of success and pedigree of the organization they will find. They will see six Lombardi Trophies, and beyond that they will see a team that has won eight AFC championships, 24 division titles and has made the playoffs 35 times since 1972.

I don't know about you, but I can't imagine there is any coach out there who would look at the Steelers organization, the owner, the history, the job security and the fact that the current roster was able to win a division title and come to the conclusion, "Nah, this is a bad job."

The Steelers are the furthest thing from a bad job or a job that "isn't as good as it appears," and they will have no issues at all attracting the very best candidates available.

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