Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin preached the importance of staying quiet in the week leading up to the AFC Championship Game and letting their play do the talking against the New England Patriots. Someone else spoke about staying quiet on social media, which apparently should have been said before the postgame speech.
That’s because only reason we know what Tomlin told his team after the game is, in fact, social media, as Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown went on Facebook Live in the locker room following the Pittsburgh’s win over the Chiefs. In the process, he caught Tomlin saying some unflattering things about the Patriots during his postgame speech, while also lamenting the fact Pittsburgh’s game was moved to Sunday night while the Patriots played Saturday night.
The video was taken down Monday morning.
“When you get to this point in the journey, man, not a lot needs to be said,” Tomlin said, per ESPN.com. “Let’s say very little moving forward. Let’s start our preparations. We just spotted these a–h—- a day and a half. They played yesterday. Our game got moved to tonight. We’re going to touch down at 4 o’clock in the f—ing morning. So be it. We’ll be ready for their a–. But you ain’t got to tell them we’re coming.”
Uh, whoops.
Much will be said about this in the coming days leading up to Sunday night’s game at Gillette Stadium, but it’s hard to get too bent out of shape about what Tomlin said. If you’re surprised that a coach might say a disparaging thing about an opponent in the locker room with his team — not knowing thousands of people also are watching and listening — well, you’ve probably never been in a locker room.
Still, it’s a pretty juicy storyline leading up to what should be a very good football game.
Thumbnail photo via Jason Bridge/USA TODAY Sports Images
