Category: Mike Tomlin press conference

Social media gives Mike Tomlin leaving the podium the meme treatment

Social media had a field day with the video of Mike Tomlin leaving the podium after Monday’s loss.

After Monday’s loss to the Buffalo Bills, Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin did his best to hold a somewhat cogent press conference. But with very little to say about what went wrong, he was asked about having one year left on his contract, to which he stared blankly and walked away. Here is what social media has to say about it.

Steelers HC Mike Tomlin says ‘elite teams’ overcome bad refereeing

The referees’ calls favored the Jaguars, but a now-calmer Mike Tomlin knows it’s up to the play of his Steelers to overcome it.

Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Diontae Johnson was vocal about the crew officiating the team’s 20-10 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars.

While it certainly appeared the referees’ calls were one-sided, as Johnson indicated, a now-calmer Mike Tomlin knows it’s up to the players to overcome it.

“It is our desire to win definitively, where potentially controversial calls are less significant,” Tomlin said in his weekly press conference. “That’s what elite teams do. It is our desire to be a good and elite team so that we’re not as flimsy and become a component of some debatable calls and things of that nature.”

From the roughing the passer penalty on Keanu Neal to the offsides call that negated an initially successful field goal, it was clear the officiating crew was against the Steelers. But the ineptitude and inconsistency of NFL officials rears its ugly head in each game — there’s nothing teams can do in the moment but outplay it.

“I like to focus my energies on the things that are within our control, the quality of our execution. When you do that definitively, it makes those discussions more relevant, and that’s the point that I want to make to our football team moving forward.”

“You just simply got to make those discussions less significant by the quality of your play by winning and winning definitively, and we didn’t play well enough for that to transpire.”

The Pittsburgh Steelers are far from elite and not even good right now. The fact that they couldn’t overcome the poor officiating is no surprise.

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Mike Tomlin: Steelers didn’t do anything ‘cutting edge’ during the bye

Don’t expect to see anything vastly different than what you’re used to out of the Steelers.

When you tune into the Pittsburgh Steelers-Los Angeles Rams matchup on Sunday, don’t expect to see anything vastly different than what you’re used to.

Mike Tomlin admitted that he and his staff didn’t do anything innovative or pioneering when tweaking the game plans based on the team’s pre-bye performance.

“Rest assured that every team in the National Football League delves into self-analysis during bye weeks, and they come through and look critically at every component of what it is that they do — whether it’s strategy or schematics, the division of labor or the development of individual players,” Tomlin explained during his weekly Tuesday press conference. “We didn’t do anything cutting edge or unique in that regard. Just rest assured we did our due diligence.”

Of course, it didn’t “behoove” (said five times throughout the 20-minute presser) Tomlin to delve into details of adjustments made. We’ll just have to wait and see the results of their work.

He isn’t ignoring the vibe surrounding the Steelers about how ineffective they’ve been in nearly every aspect of their game. He’s chosen to react by showing it on the field instead of talking about it to the press.

“We realize that we’ve absorbed some negativity based on performance. We’re men enough to absorb that negativity and stay singularly focused on what’s required to change it, and that is work. We’re not interested in assigning blame or making excuses, we’re just singularly focused on getting better, and we’re going to continue to do that. This Sunday is an opportunity to show progress in that regard.”

What we expect to see different this week is Joey Porter Jr. and Broderick Jones as starters at their respective positions, more tight end involvement and a team that wants to win.

Whether that will actually happen is anybody’s guess.

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Mike Tomlin: Roles of Najee Harris and Jaylen Warren are ‘continually evolving’

Mike Tomlin says the roles of Najee Harris and Jaylen Warren continue to evolve in this offense.

If the Pittsburgh Steelers want to keep pace with the rest of the AFC and get the offense on track, they must get back to running the football. This is how they did it last season after the bye week and it would behoove them to do it again this time around.

This means Tomlin and his staff must sort out who they utilize running backs Najee Harris and Jaylen Warren in terms of workload and scheme. When asked about it in his Tuesday press conference and frankly offered up an answer too convoluted to take very seriously.

Some of it is very black-and-white informational, some of it is gut-oriented, some of it is a mix of the two. And that’s how it gets done. So I try not to do it specifically with a cookie cutter because you miss opportunities to get better your variables and unique variables and all circumstances that require analysis.

And so I’m comfortable enough in my skin and in my position that I don’t make cookie-cutter decisions I view them on an individual basis. I’ve outlined in great detail that both guys are going to be significant components of what we do and have been and will continue to be and how we choose to divide the labor up on the game in the game out basis is continually evolving.

So when you read the last paragraph could you infer it means Warren is finally going to start seeing the football more? Warren has been the better back this season, in part because the offensive line is struggling and Warren has a better skill set to create for himself when things break down.

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Steelers HC Mike Tomlin shoots down his own ‘mojo’ comment

A lot was made of Pittsburgh Steelers HC Mike Tomlin’s “mojo” comment from his Week 3 press conference.

A lot was made of Mike Tomlin’s “mojo” comment from his Week 3 press conference. He just wanted to shut Steelers reporters up because they were asking repetitive questions and wanted to give them something to run with.

And that we did.

Every article written about the Pittsburgh Steelers leading up to their game versus the Las Vegas Raiders highlighted Tomlin stating that his team had lost their mojo.

“I’m gonna be transparent with you, I didn’t mean it,” Tomlin said in his weekly press conference.

“I don’t subscribe to mojo or intangible things or all that BS.”

Interestingly enough, Tomlin twice used the term in his opening remarks before a reporter asked him to elaborate during the Q&A portion.

It certainly seemed like the Steelers had lost their mojo, even after their Week 2 victory on Monday Night Football.

They had it in the preseason when it didn’t matter but lost it in the two weeks leading up to the regular season.

It happens. Teams come out of the gate rusty. The Steelers did get into a bit of a groove last week, and we’ll see if they build on that before they pause for their Week 6 bye.

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5 players Mike Tomlin mentioned during Browns week press conference

As usual, Steelers HC Mike Tomlin praised his team’s upcoming Browns opponent, especially the likes of Deshaun Watson and Nick Chubb.

Week 2 of the Pittsburgh Steelers season is underway, and there’s nothing more they’d like to do than forget about Week 1. As is customary, Mike Tomlin spoke highly of several players of their rival Cleveland Browns opponent.

5 players Mike Tomlin named during opening press conference

As usual, Steelers HC Mike Tomlin praised his team’s upcoming 49ers opponent, especially the likes of Nick Bosa and Christian McCaffrey.

The first workweek of the Pittsburgh Steelers 2023 regular season kicked off with Mike Tomlin’s weekly press conference today. As usual, he praised several players of their first opponent, the San Fransisco 49ers.

Steelers vs Niners: 4 early casuses for concern this week

Mike Tomlin speaks on Najee Harris missing from captain honors

During his weekly press conference, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin spoke about why Kenny Pickett was the only offensive captain named.

The Pittsburgh Steelers named team captains for the 2023 season yesterday, and one player who once received the honor did not this time around.

Najee Harris, one of two offensive captains last year, was left off this year.

But Mike Tomlin implied not to read too much into it, saying it’s more about Kenny Pickett being named than Harris not.

“[Kenny Pickett] being the lone captain on offense is obviously no disrespect to the leadership of others, but probably more reflection of everyone’s feel of his growth and development, not only as a player but as a leader within this collective, the team’s view of him and his growth and development,” Tomlin said during his first press conference of the season on Tuesday.

What’s interesting is in 2022, Pittsburgh tabbed five players as captains, but only four this year. His teammates could’ve easily voted in Harris but was not.

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