Mike Tomlin’s exit from the Pittsburgh Steelers came with a reason that had been building for a while, and he finally laid it out plainly.
Speaking on Not Just Football with Cam Hayward, Tomlin said that once he got back to his house after the Steelers’ loss to the Houston Texans last year, he knew he was finished coaching Pittsburgh. He said the thought had been there before that moment, too, dating back to when he took the job in 2007 and never expected to remain in it for so long.
“I never wanted to stay too long,” Tomlin said. “Also, there’s a cumulative component to coaching.
I had 19 years of baggage. And sometimes your teams have to carry your bags.
And I just thought we had the making of a really good team. A team that is capable of competing for and winning a championship.
But when I really started thinking about it, man, my bags might have slowed it down.”
Tomlin also drew a comparison to Andy Reid’s run with the Philadelphia Eagles, saying he felt his own time in Pittsburgh had reached a point where he no longer believed he had the goods to get the Steelers over the top.
Now working as an analyst for NBC, Tomlin said stepping away from coaching has given him a wider view of the league. He described that broader perspective as something he could not really enjoy while managing the grind of an NFL season from the sideline.
“It’s awesome to be as close to the game as I am and be able to observe the game from a global perspective,” Tomlin said. “I think when you’re coaching, you block out a lot of the peripheral things during the NFL season.
It’s been fun to really enjoy observing it, absorbing it from a football lover’s perspective. It’s also fun to be challenged.
I’m a novice, obviously, and so I’ve just been hyper-focused on getting better each and every week in terms of delivering information and delivering it in an educational and entertaining way.”
The Steelers’ game against the Bengals will be the first time Tomlin has covered a Pittsburgh game since stepping down in January.
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Former Steelers LB Reopens A Frustrating Ryan Shazier-Era Memory
When the Steelers drafted Ryan Shazier in 2014, it changed the shape of their linebacker room almost immediately, and Vince Williams felt the ripple effect. Williams later saw his playing time shrink after Shazier arrived, even though he would go on to carve out a bigger role on defense, earn a contract extension and remain a valuable part of the unit before retiring in 2021.
Now, years later, Williams has reopened one of the more frustrating memories from that stretch by revealing how he reacted to the move at the time. It is another reminder of how quickly the Steelers depth chart shifted under Kevin Colbert, whose long run as general manager included plenty of notable roster decisions and trades, some easier to celebrate in hindsight than others. [Read more 🡒]