For Michigan WR Roman Wilson, seeing Mike Tomlin at the 2024 Senior Bowl wasn’t an introduction. It was “nice to see you again.” Knowing Tomlin before the pre-draft process began, Wilson spoke about their relationship during his Friday meeting with the media at this year’s NFL Scouting Combine.
“I met Mike Tomlin a few times even before I played college football,” Wilson said via The Michigan Insider. “He’s just a great guy, definitely cares about football. You don’t see many head coaches show up at the Senior Bowl. He’s one of the guys, and he’s interacting with the players. Just a great dude.”
Tomlin is as interactive as any head coach at the Senior Bowl who isn’t actually in charge of running practice. Right on the field, he talks, coaches, and challenges prospects to see what they’re made of. That included Wilson, Tomlin pitting Toledo CB Quinyon Mitchell against him throughout the week. Both won reps but for Mitchell, the week boosted his draft stock, proving he could hang with Power-5 receivers like Wilson.
A forgotten name in another deep receiver class, Wilson routinely made big plays for the Wolverines. He led Michigan in receptions, yards, and lapped the field with his 12 touchdowns, accounting for half of the team’s total in its national championship season.
Roman Wilson didn’t detail when he had met Tomlin before. But Tomlin is the king of connections and clearly left an impression on Wilson, who is hoping to hear his name come off the board on Day 2 of the draft. Pittsburgh’s shown a noticeable interest in receivers at the Combine, holding formal meetings with several tier-two names. Wilson doesn’t appear to have been one of them but given their relationship, and multiple Senior Bowl meetings, there likely wasn’t a need to use one of the team’s allotted 45 formals on talking with him again.
Wilson will get to show Tomlin and the rest of the NFL what he can do Saturday when the receivers hit the field for workouts and drills. Wilson expects to light up the 40-yard dash.
“I think I’ll run in the low 4.3s,” he said. “I’d really like to run in the 4.2s but being humble I’ll say low 4.3.”
If Roman Wilson can turn in 4.2-something, he won’t just be on Tomlin’s radar. He’ll be on everyone else’s too.
