What Steelers' past says about coach Mike Tomlin's future - ESPN

THE FIRST CHANTS calling for coach Mike Tomlin's job started with 10 minutes and 16 seconds left in the fourth quarter of the Week 13 loss to the Buffalo Bills, as Kenneth Gainwell's 2-yard loss on fourth down sent the Pittsburgh Steelers' offense jogging off the home field after yet another fruitless possession.

Seven days later, the 53-year-old coach blew a kiss to the camera in the wake of a 27-22 Week 14 victory as a Baltimore crowd, discontent with its own coach, silently streamed out of M&T Bank Stadium.

Though Pittsburgh (7-6) enters Monday night's game against the Miami Dolphins (8:20 ET, ESPN) atop the AFC North standings and returns to the same home field where those chants happened, it has been that kind of roller-coaster season for Tomlin and the Steelers — at least on the outside.

Internally, however, multiple players, coaches and staffers describe a steady, normal operation, the kind that has been in place over the past 19 years with Tomlin at the helm.

«There's no panic in the building,» one source told ESPN NFL insider Jeremy Fowler. «That's how weeks like [Week 14] pay off. The people there [including owner Art Rooney II] aren't on social media. It's businesslike there. Mike identifies what the problem is, and he digs into the film with his staff to fix it. It's really that simple.»

«I understand my role as a leader to be what my guys need me to be,» Tomlin said days after beating the Ravens. «And certainly when you're coming off a negative performance, they need stability and belief.»

And it's that same stability created by routine and transparency that has endeared Tomlin to hundreds of players and kept him entrenched in an organization that mirrors the values of its head coach.

«It's a very knee-jerk