When one thinks of the Pittsburgh Steelers, what immediately comes to mind is a hard-nosed, physical, tough-to-play-against team in all three phases that wins a lot of football games.
From the days of Chuck Noll, down through Bill Cowher’s tenure and throughout Mike Tomlin’s era in Pittsburgh, that’s largely been the case.
Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Doug Pederson certainly sees that in Tomlin’s 2023 Steelers.
Speaking to the media Wednesday ahead of the Week Eight matchup at Acrisure Stadium, Pederson stated that Tomlin has done a great job of carrying on the tradition and legacy of the Steelers when it comes to them being a tough team to play against and a disciplined one.
“I know Mike pretty well. Coached against him several times now. A lot of respect for him and what he’s done there. You mention, he’s won a lot of football games, double-digit wins most of his career. That’s pretty impressive,” Pederson said to reporters, according to video via FloridaToday.com. “Obviously the championships and things of that nature. He does a great job of just getting his teams prepared, the way he messages his team, motivates his team.
“They play hard, physical, they’re fast. It’s a disciplined group, and they always have been. It’s kind of the tradition of the Pittsburgh Steelers over time, and he’s carried that on throughout his career as their head coach.”
Entering the Week Seven matchup with the Los Angeles Rams, the Steelers were the least penalized team in the league per game. They did things the right way on defense, and for the most part tried to minimize the mistakes offensively to stay out of their own way.
They’ve also played quite hard on both sides of the football and tried to play fast. There is speed all over the roster, which makes them tough to defend offensively and block defensively.
Though the wins haven’t quite been there in recent years for Tomlin as the Steelers have hung around nine wins the last two seasons after winning 12 games in 2020, historically Tomlin wins, and wins at a high rate. In his career, Tomlin owns a .636 winning percentage in the regular season. That’s higher than Cowher and Noll. Pretty remarkable.
There’s a lot of mutual respect there between Pederson and Tomlin. They know each other well and have coached against each other often. Pederson is 1-1 against Tomlin in his career as head coach, losing 38-29 in Week Five of the 2020 season at then-Heinz Field, but defeating the Steelers 34-3 in Week Three of the 2016 season at Lincoln Financial Field.
They’ll meet for a third time as head coaches on Sunday.
