Mike Tomlin had plenty of issues winning in the playoffs late in his Pittsburgh Steelers tenure. But more often than not, Tomlin handled the Baltimore Ravens during the regular season even when the Ravens held a significant edge at quarterback.
The final two losses the Ravens suffered to Tomlin are clearly still bothering Baltimore linebacker Kyle Van Noy.
He expressed his bitterness while taking a few different shots at the Steelers during a guest appearance on the Throwbacks with Matt Leinart & Jerry Ferrara podcast on Thursday.
“We let a 42-year-old [Aaron Rodgers] wax us twice, which just eats at me,” Van Noy said, via Steelers Depot’s Troy Montgomery. “Because they weren’t a good football team. They were better that day, but they weren’t a good football team collectively.”
Of course, the Steelers were good enough to beat the Ravens twice, which also led Van Noy to admit Baltimore wasn’t a good football team either in 2025. The linebacker credited the officiating and Aaron Rodgers throwing out Arthur Smith’s playbook for the two Steelers wins over the Ravens.
“I think the first game there was a couple calls that didn’t go our way. I hate saying that, but they were huge plays in the game,” Van Noy stated. “Then, the second game where we lost, we battled the first half. In the second half, they just outplayed us.
“It was Aaron Rodgers basically saying, ‘F you’ to Arthur Smith, ‘I’m calling my own offense,’ and it ended up working. They ended up winning, so they were the better team.”
Ravens’ Kyle Van Noy Takes Shot at Steelers
The Tomlin-Harbaugh era is ending this offseason. But Van Noy appears set on making sure the intense rivalry those two head coaches helped create will continue.
The linebacker even took a shot at the Steelers’ playoff loss and Tomlin’s resignation.
“They ended up going to the playoffs, and we saw what happened in the playoff game. And their coach ended up saying, ‘No thanks anymore’ because of what he has had to deal with.”
The overall feeling Van Noy expressed about the Steelers was understandable. Some of the officiating in the first Steelers-Ravens matchup was questionable. If just one of a couple 50/50 calls went the other way, Baltimore likely wins the first matchup.
But Van Noy may have gone a little too far with his final shot over why Tomlin left Pittsburgh. For one thing, it’s likely inaccurate.
Steelers team president Art Rooney II told reporters Wednesday that Tomlin stepped down from his position for personal reasons rather than football. A report that Tomlin strongly suggested in a private meeting with players he won’t coach elsewhere in 2026 confirms that notion.
Pro Football Hall of Fame cornerback Ronde Barber revealed this week Tomlin told him before the season that 2025 could be his final year in Pittsburgh.
Even if Tomlin led the Steelers to the Super Bowl, silencing all of his critics, he probably wasn’t going to be back next season.
Van Noy Leaving for NFL Free Agency?
Like the two head coaches, Van Noy may not be back in the Steelers-Ravens rivalry either. The veteran linebacker will be an unrestricted free agent in March.
Van Noy was a terrific addition to the Baltimore defense when the team signed him in 2023. The linebacker posted a career-high nine sacks in his first Baltimore season. Then, he bested that with 12.5 sacks during his first Pro Bowl year in 2024.
But this past season, he had just two sacks with four tackles for loss in 15 contests. It’s stat lines like that from the Ravens roster that explain why they weren’t even as good as the bad Steelers.
Over the past three years, the Steelers own a 5-2 record versus the Ravens. Tomlin swept Van Noy’s club in both 2023 and 2025.
Ravens LB Takes Several Digs at Steelers Days After Mike Tomlin Resigns