“Man, it’s a sad day for me,” two-time Super Bowl champion and former Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Bryant McFadden said earlier this year when Mike Tomlin stepped down from his role as the Steelers’ head coach. In the NFL, when head coaches step away, they certainly decide to coach another team.

Tomlin, however, is currently serving as a studio analyst at NBC for Football Night in America during the 2026 season. At the same time, it makes you wonder whether Tomlin would ever consider returning to coaching again following the season.

NFL analyst Ari Meirov asked McFadden where Mike Tomlin would be in 2027. McFadden believes his former head coach will be coaching next year.

“That’s a great question,” said McFadden. “I think he will be coaching again in 2027. I think it’s one of these situations where because he was doing it for such a long time and then when you kind of remove yourself from that life, you get a chance to kind of recharge your battery.

“And I think that’s what he’s doing now. I think it’s more about the structure. What is he walking into? Because when he became the head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, he walked into a well-defined situation.”

Tomlin succeeded Bill Cowher and went on to spend 19 seasons as the Steelers head coach. He finished his Pittsburgh tenure with 193 regular-season wins, tying former Pittsburgh head coach Chuck Noll for the most in Steelers history. His 193 wins also placed him ninth all-time in NFL regular-season coaching wins at the time he stepped down.

But at the same time, his tenure faced immense criticism as the Steelers failed to win a playoff game in almost a decade. After the team lost to the Houston Texans in the Wild-Card round earlier this year, Mike Tomlin stepped down.

While multiple teams reportedly reached out to him for a potential coaching role, Tomlin reportedly declined and acknowledged that he won’t be coaching in 2026. Subsequently, he entered broadcasting and joined NBC.

However, when Cris Collinsworth asked Tomlin whether he’d be returning to coaching in 2027, the former head coach acknowledged that he hasn’t thought about it yet.

“I haven’t thought a whole lot about it yet, because I don’t feel like I’m missing anything yet,” said Tomlin. “You know, when those regular-season balls start snapping, that’s when I’ll start, you know, getting a little twitch a little bit.”

For now, it’s uncertain whether Tomlin will return to coaching next year. If he does, however, he’ll be one of the hottest names on the market. However, Meirov presented McFadden with a question: what if Mike Tomlin prefers Bill Cowher route and stays a broadcaster after stepping down as the Steelers’ head coach? McFadden gave a telling answer.

“The unique thing about Bill Cowher, and I actually found this out a few months ago, when I did a sit-down with him, I asked him why he never returned to coaching, and he said that he could not see himself coaching for any other organization outside of the Pittsburgh Steelers,” McFadden added…He knew if he wanted to coach, he couldn’t accept coaching for someone else.

“Now, would Mike Tomlin have the same sentiments? Would he feel the same way? Because I don’t know if anyone knew that information with BC (Bill Cowher) before he told me…He couldn’t see himself coaching for any other team outside of the Pittsburgh Steelers, and Steelers fans love to hear that type of thing because once the Steelers, always a Steelers.”

Coaches like Sean Payton chose to coach the Denver Broncos after stepping down as the New Orleans Saints head coach. Whether Mike Tomlin would prefer Cowher’s route or Payton’s route will only be answered in 2027.