The 2024 season came to an end in a very similar way the previous seven did. With Mike Tomlin's job still secure, that begs the question what exact change can help produce better results in 2025 and beyond.

The Steelers are just not a good enough football team to win the Super Bowl. Tomlin admitted as such during his end-of-season press conference Tuesday at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex. 

"Particularly at this level, in this business and game, there's football justice," Tomlin said. "You get what you deserve, and so we're here, and we're here for really tangible reasons, man. We didn't evolve in the right ways. We didn't strike the right chords at the right time, particularly down the stretch, and so we've been eliminated from the single-elimination tournament. And so for us, it's about assessing the reasons why, doing assessment of every component of what it is we do here, and the manner in which we do it."

The quest for finding out why began with Tomlin having meetings with Art Rooney II and Omar Khan on Monday. It continued Tuesday with player exit interviews and another lengthy meeting later this week between Tomlin and Khan to start constructing a game plan for how to shape the roster throughout the offseason, starting with the quarterback position.

Without there being any change at head coach, it's difficult to imagine any sweeping changes to a franchise that has gone eight seasons without a playoff win, the longest streak in the Super Bowl era. So, it begs the question of what changes can be made. And, yes, that can begin at the top.

I asked Tomlin if the same result of the past several seasons makes him re-think the way he goes about his job or handles this upcoming offseason:

"Certainly. I have a cliche the guys oftentimes throw back at me in jest, but it's true: 'Two is a pattern.' And I say that because there's an expiration date on adjusting and adapting. I use that phrase to reflect urgency, to reflect how quickly it is we need to adapt, adjust and move. Although, as you mentioned, we've had similar results. Rest assured that we're not doing the same things hoping for a different result. We have adapted. We have altered our approach, and we will continue because we're not getting what we seek. That's the confetti game. It's to be world champs. Our goals are really clear. It's also really clear that we've fallen short of it, and fallen short of it in a consistent way. So, we're still going to continue to be open to adapting our behavior, our program, the structure of what it is that we do, to turn over every stone in an effort to get what we desire. That's just the appropriate, mature way to approach it."

While Tomlin says they have adapted and altered their approach, I'm skeptical in just how sweeping those changes are. Last year, Tomlin hired Arthur Smith as offensive coordinator, a rare outside hire instead of a promotion from within. The team has been more active in free agency, though not having a quarterback signed to a huge contract aids in that endeavor quite a bit. And, the earlier rounds of the draft in recent seasons has focused on positions more teams are drafting earlier, as well.

However, the schematics on both sides of the ball seem a bit outdated. Smith's system was very successful in 2019-2020, a similar system run by both Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay during that time. However, both of those offensive geniuses have altered their approach to how they attack defenses while Smith is still kind of stuck in that same era. The better defenses in the league are also blitzing more often while the Steelers have lowered their blitz percentage over the past couple seasons.

Regardless of what changes need to be made, change needs to happen. Tomlin's not going anywhere, so it's up to him to make said changes. And, according to what he said Tuesday, those are coming.

"I would imagine there's going to be some things that change around here on a lot of levels," Tomlin said. "But that's just this game, and so I understand that. I'm open to that. We’re really just beginning the processes of some of the decision making that has to transpire."

We have yet to see what changes could possibly be made. I doubt Smith is going anywhere after just one season. Maybe Teryl Austin will be scapegoated. On the players' side, the 26 pending free agents and a ton of cap space provides a great opportunity to change the roster to better fit what they want to do schematically or philosophically.

But, that's where the Steelers probably need to change the most. Of course, solving quarterback would help fix a lot of that. However, if anything about the 2025 team resembles what this team did in 2024, it's hard to predict any outcome that's different than what we've witnessed for eight straight seasons.