Steelers fans hear all the time about how much playes love to play for Coach Tomlin.
Aaron Rodgers said as much when he noted Mike Tomlin as the driving factor in his decision to join the Steelers.
Why? Primarily because he is a players' coach. But according to James Harrison, that isn't always a good thing...
James Harrison reveals what it's like to play for Coach Tomlin
"With Mike (Tomlin), the biggest thing I guess that I like about him is he is a player's coach," said Harrison on Nightcap. "And the thing that I dislike about him is he is a players' coach to a point of, sometimes it can disrupt because it goes maybe a little too far with allowing certain things with certain players. And then it becomes an issue with that player . . .
" . . . Especially towards the end of my career, the biggest thing was, you ask the tough question, you get the tough answer. Well, I was asking tough questions, and I wasn't getting the answer. I was getting told things that weren't the answer that was the true answer.”
Mike Tomlin has been able to win games with characters like Antonio Brown, Ike Taylor, Ryan Clark, Le'Veon Bell and plenty of others. I mean George Pickens was a headache that everyone except Tomlin wanted out, and by the offseason, even Coach T had enough.
But when you have these headaches or character concerns and they produce, the attention is going to gravitate towards them. If they didn't produce, they would just be cut.
Sometimes that attention feels unequal. I could only imagine what it was like for Antonio Brown, versus even someone of James Harrison's caliber. But the problem is, what is Coach Tomlin going to do? Bench Antonio Brown, who had a six-season run that rivals that of Jerry Rice?
Yeah, I don't think so.
Being a player's coach certainly has its downsides, but I'm not so sure Aaron Rodgers , Darius Slay, DK Metcalf, or Jalen Ramsey sign off on being a Steeler if there is a different head coach in Pittsburgh.
