All-Pro OLB T.J. Watt has made multiple appearances during media week in Las Vegas ahead of Super Bowl LVIII this Sunday. He appeared on NFL on NBC’s Pro Football Talk with Chris Simms and Mike Florio on Thursday and was asked if he ever gets tired of having to defending his head coach, Mike Tomlin.
“I don’t ever get tired of saying good things about him,” Watt said. “It’s true, it really is. None of this is a front. It’s truly how we all feel about him. I feel like if it’s not, that part would’ve got out already, but it hasn’t, and he’s a great coach for a reason.”
The 2023 season was one of the more tumultuous ones of Tomlin’s tenure. The Steelers dealt with the incessant questions about offensive coordinator Matt Canada over the first half of the season. Then Canada was fired in an unprecedented move for the franchise, and Tomlin had to deal with the blowback from that. There were also the wide receiver effort-related issues that he had to weather, including Diontae Johnson giving up on a play when he had an opportunity to make a tackle after a fumble recovery and George Pickens failing to block for Jaylen Warren near the goal line.
Many of those stories were amplified by the fact that the Steelers were in the midst of a three-game losing streak at the time. Questions started popping up about the Steelers’ overall culture in the locker room from the media and even former players of the team. All of these things culminated in what Tomlin eventually wrote off as unfounded rumors that he was considering stepping away from the team. Even if he didn’t step away, others wondered if the Steelers would move on after 17 years of Tomlin as the head coach.
All of that was put to rest rather quickly after the season and team president Art Rooney II and Tomlin himself have mutually expressed in separate interviews that he plans to stay with the organization and has no intention of taking a break from coaching.
Many current players publicly expressed their support for Tomlin throughout the whole process, and chief among them was Watt. He also mentioned an interesting nugget that, during his contract negotiations, a huge discussion was making sure Tomlin was going to stick around for the duration of his time in Pittsburgh. Watt said he didn’t want to play for anybody else, via a clip posted by The Athletic’s Mike DeFabo on X.
Watt was asked for a specific example of how Tomlin gets the most out of his players.
“I think it’s holding everybody accountable,” Watt said. “As far as in the film room, when we come in the team meeting room you don’t know what he’s gonna show you. Everybody kind of has a little nervous feel. We’re all looking around at each other like, ‘What play?’ And when that play pops up, you immediately know before he even hits play, ‘Oh it’s my play.'”
Watt continued by saying that sometimes you will be talking with Tomlin before the meeting and having a nice conversation just moments before he puts you on blast in the meeting room. So while he partially deserves the “players coach” label that many stick him with, it isn’t without accountability in front of the whole team.
Tomlin’s record as a head coach needs no defending as he is tied for the 12th-most NFL wins of all time with Jeff Fisher. The main blemish on his resume is his lack of recent playoff success, though he already has a Super Bowl ring to his name and appeared in another Super Bowl. That is no small feat.
