Steelers fans who want Mike Tomlin fired have egg on their face despite Browns loss

Pittsburgh Steelers fans were ready to throw Mike Tomlin into the Alleghany after a Thursday Night Football loss in the snow to the Cleveland Browns. In fairness to those fans, a perceived contender like the Steelers, even on the road and in the elements, losing to Jameis Winston and the lowly Browns will make you think some crazy things.

Despite the success of the Steelers this season, though, there was a group of fans who continued to beat the drum that Tomlin should be replaced. The belief in this camp has been that there are coaches who could do more with this roster beyond keeping an ultimately meaningless above-.500 streak alive.

However, as Week 12 continued to play out, you start to see that using the loss to Cleveland as the primary example of why Tomlin deserves to be fired might not be the best evidence of that.

Steelers fans who wanted Mike Tomlin fired after Browns loss need to eat some crow

On Sunday in Week 12, we watched the Washington Commanders, another potential contender in the league's postseason landscape, lose to the snake-bitten Cowboys. It was also a week in which the Houston Texans couldn't get out of their own way and took an L against the Titans. Essentially, a pair of fellow contenders like the Steelers played divisional games against inferior opponents and lost.

Let's be clear: Tomlin and the Steelers shouldn't have lost to the Browns. At the same time, over the course of 17 games in the regular season, these things happen. Bounces of the ball, some ill-time penalties or mistakes, and so many other things can flip a game on a dime. What's more, when you look at teams like the Commanders and Texans, they weren't battling a snowstorm like Pittsburgh was on Thursday night.

Tomlin isn't a perfect head coach — but he is a damn good head coach. While his streak of seasons finishing over .500 is a bit overinflated in terms of its overall importance, there's a reason no other coach in the league can boast such a mark. He raises the floor so substantially for Pittsburgh and we see it each year. Hell, he maintained that streak when the Steelers had to start Duck Hodges at quarterback for some time.

The Browns loss isn't what any Steelers fan wanted, nor is it good for the outlook in the AFC Playoff picture or any hope of catching the Chiefs in the conference hierarchy. But if you're looking to say Tomlin should be out of a job because of it, clean the egg off your face, look at what happened on Sunday, and realize that teams aren't going to go 17-0 and that there will be perplexing losses. That's just the DNA of the NFL.