FOXBORO, Mass. — Mike Tomlin just wishes he chose his words more carefully.
Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown streamed Tomlin’s postgame speech live on Facebook following Pittsburgh’s divisional-round win over the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday. It was a strange move that didn’t sit well with the Steelers head coach, who used profanity during his speech while discussing Pittsburgh’s upcoming AFC Championship Game opponent, the New England Patriots.
But Tomlin’s biggest regret has nothing to do with the point he was trying to make in the locker room. Instead, he’s more ashamed about the actual words he used while addressing his team.
“I was embarrassed by the language,” Tomlin admitted Wednesday during a conference call with the New England media. “I take my role as a role model and the platform that we have in the National Football League very seriously, and as a parent, I’m just not into public displays of that type of language.
“So I was more embarrassed about that element of it, not necessarily the content or the message in the video.”
Tomlin called the Patriots “a–holes” amid his NSFW address Sunday. So is that really how he feels about Bill Belichick’s bunch?
“You could have applied that sentiment to any opponent. You could have made that tape two weeks earlier and applied it to that opponent,” Tomlin clarified Wednesday. “It’s not about the nameless great faces that we play for us. It’s about our overall readiness and preparation, and that was the sentiment of the message that I was sending to the guys. Not necessarily about the New England Patriots. They just happen to be who we are playing this week.”
In other words, Tomlin simply was playing the role of motivator with his team one win away from reaching Super Bowl LI. And while his motivational speech involved using some strong language and taking a dig at the Steelers’ next opponent, it all was done with the intention of getting his team to shift gears. The Patriots, after all, have won 15 of 17 games this season, including their divisional-round matchup with Houston Texans.
“I was just trying to instill a sense of urgency in the group regarding our preparation,” Tomlin said. “I wanted them to understand that we didn’t have a lot of time to pat ourselves on the back based on the performance of the last game, that we needed to transition and transition quickly and start the preparation process, whether it was actual preparation or just from a mentality standpoint.”
Tomlin came down hard on Brown earlier this week, calling the Pro Bowl wideout’s decision to use Facebook Live in the locker room immediately after the Steelers’ win both “foolish” and “selfish.” He also noted that off-the-field incidents are “why often times you see great players move around from team to team.”
Now, Tomlin surely understands Brown’s importance to the Steelers. But he needed to make it clear that such antics are unacceptable. Was the message received?
“I think time always tells those stories,” Tomlin said.
For now, the stories of both Brown and the Steelers’ season remain incomplete.
Thumbnail photo via Aaron Doster/USA TODAY Sports Images
