The NFL Combine can be stressful for prospects. They’re shuffled through team interviews, media interviews, and on-field workouts with little downtime in between. For some, their performance on the field can be the difference between them getting drafted or not, or the difference between being a first-round pick or falling. Prospects are constantly under a microscope, but for Will Howard, he didn’t feel that way when he met with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The Steelers held a formal meeting with Howard, and he told Cam Heyward on Heyward’s Not Just Football podcast that the meeting was different (in a good way) from his other interviews.
“Mike [Tomlin] and I just sat there, and I was in a chair, they put me in a nice, comfy chair in the middle of a room. And everyone was just looking at me, talking to me. It was really just Mike T and I talking, he just wanted to get to know me and who I was, what I was about. At that moment, I was like, ‘Wow, this guy’s different. He’s not like a lot of other coaches,'” Howard said.
He thought that Tomlin, like other coaches, would want him to get up on the board and see if he was a “good processor” or try to remember plays. The fact that it wasn’t the case really resonated with Howard.
“I thought that was probably my favorite interview that I had throughout the whole process. Because it’s such a strenuous, stressful process,” he said. “And for Mike T to come in there and just be cool and down to earth, it was a little breath of fresh air.”
After getting drafted by the Steelers, Howard said Pittsburgh was the place he wanted to be. Instead of putting Howard through the ringer with board work and film study and making it more of a formal interview with a clear power dynamic, the Steelers and Mike Tomlin focused on getting to know Howard as a person.
The Steelers do a ton of scouting legwork to make sure a prospect has the traits and skills they’re looking for. What’s hard to learn through watching tape and going to games is how a prospect is as a person. Information can be gleaned from talking to coaches and people around a program, but it’s not until the team can get a player in a room and have a conversation with him that it can feel comfortable with his character.
That’s a big part of Combine interviews, and the Steelers and Tomlin’s efforts to get to know Howard beyond who he is a player was refreshing for him. Clearly, the Steelers liked what they heard from him too, and Howard has been nothing but a consummate professional since the team took him in the sixth round of the draft.
