Losing in the first round of the playoffs is a bitter pill to swallow for anyone, but especially for Pittsburgh Steelers’ head coach Mike Tomlin.
Once again, the Steelers came up short in the first round of the playoffs, losing to the Buffalo Bills Monday night in Buffalo, 31-17, ending what once looked like a promising season.
Rarely in the mood to answer many questions postgame, especially after a loss, Tomlin did something Monday that he’s never done, at least in recent memory: walked off the podium in the middle of a question from a reporter.
During a question near the end of his press conference from ESPN’s Brooke Pryor regarding his contract, Tomlin abruptly left the podium.
The Steelers, in the video that they posted to Twitter, edited the clip to not show Tomlin walk off the podium in the middle of Pryor’s question. In the live broadcast of the press conference though, you could clearly hear Pryor get into her question, stating “Mike, you have a year left on your contract.”
At that point, Tomlin walked off.
In recent weeks Tomlin’s future has been speculated about quite a bit, though nothing has come from him directly. FOX’s Jay Glazer, a close friend of Tomlin’s, speculated a few weeks ago that Tomlin could decide to take some time off from coaching, which ESPN’s Adam Schefter later followed up on with a report of his own.
However, there is the belief that a contract extension is coming for Tomlin. NBC Sports’ Mike Florio reported over the weekend that Tomlin will decide his coaching future after the season. While that report seems like Florio believes Tomlin’s future is up in the air, he added some context to the report and stated that Tomlin does this after every season, and that the belief is he will get a contract extension.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette beat writer Gerry Dulac also believes an extension is coming for Tomlin.
But asked immediately after a playoff loss about his future, instead of addressing it, Tomlin walked off the podium, ignoring the question. That seems very telling, honestly. Something to certainly monitor.
