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My guess is unfortunately Rooney does nothing, hopes the fans and media cool off, and then quietly extends Tomlins contract in February.
Rinse and repeat
The only question will be whether Rooney exercises the 2027 option on Tomlin's contract if they lose Sunday night.
He put that in the contract for a reason , and neither side wants to go into 2026 with no financial commitment beyond that.
Short of something crazy happening (like the Steelers reaching the AFC title game), Rooney would lose any credibility he has left with fans by extending Tomlin into 2027, let alone beyond it.
Maybe he just doesn't care like his father Dan seemed to, but I'd like to think otherwise, considering the city already has one stubborn ******* sports owner in Bob Nutting.
Tomlin will never be fired in the conventional sense, but the stars might be aligning for a mutual parting of ways, depending on what happens not just against the Ravens, but in the home playoff game if they were to beat the Ravens.
Rooney might not hold his teams to quite the same standards as prior decades, but I suspect he definitely doesn't want another repeat of the Bills game disaster on national TV over the next couple weeks.
And at some point, even Rooney has to start asking himself, " I'm paying this guy $16mil a season for what, exactly?"