Reports that head coach Mike Tomlin would return for the 2024 season after telling players in an end-of-season meeting Tuesday weren’t all that surprising.
He’s under contract, just went 10-7 in a rather trying season, and has never truly shown signs of being worn out or wanting a challenge other than as the head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
It certainly helped that a number of players, including team captain Cameron Heyward and star outside linebacker T.J. Watt spoke passionately about Tomlin, stating they don’t want to play for any other coach. The pushback on that has been that the players must be satisfied with mediocrity if they want to keep playing for Tomlin.
For former NFL defensive end J.J. Watt, who appeared on the Pat McAfee Show Wednesday, that isn’t the case with the players at all. There’s more nuance to the Tomlin conversation than just being outraged on one side or satisfied on the other.
“I mean, you look in the locker room and you read the quotes of the guys that’s in their exit interviews with the media. And to a man, every single guy has said that they only wanna play for Tomlin,” Watt said, according to video via McAfee’s Twitter page. “Obviously, T.J. said it’s a big part of his contract negotiation a couple years ago. He wants to play for Mike T; the only guy he wants to play for is Mike T. Everybody in that locker room loves him, respects him, wants to play for him.
“I also don’t think that that means that they’re satisfied with the outcome, that means they’re satisfied with the way things have gone, and that means they’re satisfied with where they are currently. I think there’s certainly things that they want to improve and get better on there.”
Leave it to J.J. Watt to bring a level head to the conversation.
Just because Heyward and T.J. Watt, the two biggest names on the roster, spoke glowingly of Tomlin as a coach and man doesn’t mean they are satisfied with just one playoff win between them, that coming in 2016 before Watt entered the NFL. Watt is one of the best defensive players in the NFL and could go down as one of the best to ever do it. The no playoff wins is eating at him.
He’s tired of having the same conversations year after year, is tired of not tasting that playoff success. But that doesn’t mean he wants a change at head coach. This notion that the players are fat and happy under Tomlin and are perfectly fine winning eight, nine or 10 games, bowing out of the playoffs and then hitting the road for vacation year after year is absurd.
These are uber-competitive players, ones who want to reach the mountain top. They want to do it with Tomlin, too.
That matters.
Of course, J.J. Watt also understands the other side of the conversation, the folks pushing back on the lack of success from Tomlin, stating it’s time for a change especially after the Patriots moved on from the greatest coach of all-time in Bill Belichick. However, Watt also knows that quick fixes and changes like that at head coach don’t just magically fix things.
“I am personally also fully and well aware of how difficult it is in this league to find a good football coach,” Watt said. “And I do think that people think that there’s these quick fixes and things. Somebody’s gonna come in and make this thing miraculously better and figure it all out. I really, really, really do not know if you’re gonna find many better football coaches in the world than Mike Tomlin.”
If the Steelers ever do make a change, they might not find a better coach than Tomlin, at least not right away. Of course, the Steelers didn’t know they’d find a great coach after Chuck Noll or Bill Cowher. They did, though.
