During the regular season, you often don’t hear much from any of the coaches outside of head coach Mike Tomlin and the offensive and defensive coordinators during their weekly Thursday availability.
The reality is that there are so many more coaches working diligently behind the scenes that we don’t often hear from outside of a couple times a year…if at all. One assistant coach who has flown under the radar since he was hired in April is Offensive Assistant Glenn Thomas.
OC Eddie Faulkner was asked about Thomas’ role with the team and if his previous role has changed at all with himself and QB Coach Mike Sullivan divvying up the responsibilities of former OC Matt Canada.
“Glenn Thomas is awesome, man,” Faulkner said to the media on Thursday according to official transcript provided by the Steelers. “He’s been a coordinator in Power Five schools for years. The expertise that comes with that kind of resume, you would expect to get good information from him. He’s been fantastic.”
Thomas came to Pittsburgh in the spring after concluding the 2022 season as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for Arizona State. Prior to his stop with the Sun Devils, Thomas was the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at UNLV for two seasons and held a co-offensive coordinator role along with the quarterbacks coach title at Baylor from 2017-2019. Prior to Baylor, Thomas was with Temple for two seasons as the quarterbacks coach and the offensive coordinator for the 2016 season. Thomas also spent seven seasons with the Atlanta Falcons as an offensive assistant and quarterbacks coach after being the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Midwestern State from 2004-2007.
Needless to say, Thomas has a fair amount of experience calling plays and working with the offense on the college and NFL levels, especially with the quarterbacks. One would figure that Thomas works closely with Sullivan in aiding the development of QB Kenny Pickett given his extensive experience working with the position, likely playing a role in giving suggestions to both Faulkner, Sullivan, and Canada before them in terms of what schemes or concepts may work best for the Steelers’ young quarterback.
Hopefully someday we will get media availability to hear from Thomas himself. Until then, Faulkner will go to bat for his co-worker and all that he does behind the scenes to help this offense, being a sounding board for Faulkner and Sullivan as another experienced mind to throw his hand in the pile for the development of Pickett and the progression of this offense.
