At some point down the line, the word “Tomlinism” is going to enter the dictionary. Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin’s aphorisms, sayings, and expressions have been widely adopted in the public consciousness in and around the NFL and the sporting world, though often to mixed reactions.
One of the most common Tomlinism themes is the idea of overcoming obstacles and the manner in which you do it. “Smile in the face of adversity”, he says. “We do not seek comfort”. Sometimes, he even takes it upon himself to manufacture that adversity—with one such moment having NFL analyst Mark Schlereth in awe, though partly out of his own ego.
The former NFL offensive lineman shared a story on his Stinkin’ Truth podcast recently about a practice that he attended in Pittsburgh last year. In it, he saw Tomlin running a drill that he had long thought should be common, but which he’d never seen before. He watched Tomlin flip the offense and defense and have running backs trying to cover linebackers and safeties.
“All of a sudden, he blows a whistle and he goes, ‘Alright, switch it up’”, he shared. The safeties and the linebackers went into the ball-carrying role and the running backs flipped over and played safety. I’m like, this is what my dream has been”.
He added that he spoke to Tomlin after practice about why he ran that drill. “He goes, ‘You know, I just think it’s always important to really understand some of the issues that other guys have’”. In other words, the better you understand what your opponent is seeing, the more equipped you are to beat him.
Now, I’m sure Tomlin isn’t the first coach in NFL history to have defenders playing an offensive role against offensive players. Perhaps it’s not incredibly common, given that Schlereth had a lengthy NFL career and has been covering the game for some time, but the idea didn’t come out of nowhere.
And there is value in it. We know this. The best players in the league always want to better understand the mind of the people they’re trying to beat. Sometimes the best way to do that is to act in their capacity, as if figuring out how to beat yourself. If you know how to stop yourself, you can figure out a counter.
Of course, you still want running backs focusing their attention on how to play the running back position, and inside linebackers to focus on playing inside linebacker. This is just one exercise that helps broaden a player’s perspective.
I do wonder how common it is in Steelers practices, though. Schlereth talked about watching this practice in preparation for covering a game. He worked their game against the New Orleans Saints last year in Week 10, so perhaps it was then that he saw this drill.
