Pittsburgh Steelers QB Russell Wilson spent most of his career with former Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll. Seattle is where Wilson went from a third-round pick to a Super Bowl-winning quarterback. He spent 10 years with Carroll and learned a lot about him as a coach and a leader.
Wilson has only been with the Steelers since March, but he’s learned plenty about Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin in that time. And there are definitely some similar characteristics between the two.
“I think both of them love winning, obviously,” Wilson said on Thursday’s episode of Not Just Football with Cam Heyward. “But how they do it, how they teach it, the inspiration every day, you know…Coach Tomlin, I think his ability to be really blunt, but also he sees it all. I mean, he sees it all, and Coach Carroll was a lot like that.”
Tomlin is known for his famous “Tomlinisms,” his sayings about the game of football and life. They can be inspirational, or they can sow conviction in his players. It’s why “the secret is there is no secret” is one of Tomlin’s favorites.
Wilson himself got to experience one of Tomlin’s favorite sayings up close and personal during training camp. He sustained a calf injury during a conditioning test before the team even took to the field for the first practice. A common refrain from Tomlin during that time was that he was making Wilson miserable by holding him out. Tomlin was simultaneously protecting Wilson from further injury and helping sharpen Wilson for the road ahead.
“Learn to love to be miserable,” as Tomlin would say.
Wilson doesn’t love just the football-related wisdom from Tomlin, either.
“Mike has this interesting dynamic where he is sitting on the back porch with us here in Latrobe, and he’s telling me a story about how he grew up and how it relates to me as a father and our son and this and that,” Wilson said. “Just the things that he understands and processes. I think how he walks in a room, he’s got a certain swagger. And so both of them are amazing coaches. I’ve just been blessed to obviously play under Coach Carroll, but now playing with Coach Tomlin, it’s an amazing honor and treat to be able to take notes every day of him and learn from him.”
Tomlin could be characterized as a warrior-poet, someone concerned with wisdom as much as warfare. His war just takes place on the gridiron, not a real battlefield. But Tomlin is concerned with equipping his players to not only be the best football players they can be but to be the best men they can be.
And Wilson genuinely appreciates all of what Tomlin brings as his head coach.
You can watch the entire conversation with Wilson below.
