November 20, 2022 • 12 mins
Steelers Digest Editor Bob Labriola sits down with Head Coach Mike Tomlin ahead of the Steelers Week 11 matchup versus Cincinnati
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
He's the Mike Tomlin Game Day Podcast with Steelers Digest
editor Bobby Labriola. Okay, coach, after wins such as last
Sundays over New Orleans, you always say something about will
there still are things for the team to work on
and improve upon? It's good to go into that work
with a win. Is there actually a noticeable difference in
the way the players come to work based on the
(00:22):
outcome of the previous game? Without a doubt? They're human? Um,
you know, football is a game. Our business is winning.
When you win, you take care of business. When you don't,
you're not. And so there's there's consequences of that, um.
And everybody understands that, really, and everybody embraces that. You know,
there's joy and winning. Um, that's what we do. But
(00:44):
what about you know, in terms of the work, is
it more productive if they're kind of happy and coming
to work or if they're honked off? You know, I
think both states of mine are useful. To be quite
honest with you, I think, Um, from a coach's perspective, Uh,
that's the approach I take. I know there's a certain
energy or attention that's that's capable of being captured when
(01:07):
we win, and I work to capture it. And I
also understand that there's a differing spirit or energy or
urgency to capture when we lose, and it's a coach's
job to to capture that as well. Sticking with the
game against the Saints for a minute, you also said
you were happy with the way the team began the
game because it came after a buy and that you
never can be sure about the start of a game
(01:29):
coming off a weekend without a game. You said, quote,
the team didn't waste any time warming up to the
competition and got into the flow of the game immediately.
Besides talking about that, is there a way to make
sure that that happens? You know, there are several things
that you do. You know, you work to get into
that that rhythm as you come off to buy um
(01:49):
that whins the Thursday, Friday, Saturday leading up to it,
and getting back into the structure of a game week.
But the reality is that there's a rhythm to this thing.
You're stepping into a stadium once a week, and over
the course of four or five months, man, you just
gathered that rhythm and missing an opportunity to do it.
Although it's a welcome breaking the action. Uh. There's always
(02:10):
like concern about you know, rust and things of that
nature warming up to the competition. And so I think
if you talk about the elephant in the room, there's
there's less risk of that becoming a negative factor in play.
And we talked openly about it. We acknowledge the potential
of that, all in an effort to reduce the potential
of it. Alex Highsmith had two sex last Sunday. Uh,
(02:32):
and on one of them he got to in Andy
Dalton on one of those by using a spin move. Uh.
Did Highsmith come to the NFL with that move or
did he developed it once he got here? You know,
he may have had it when he got here. Everyone
has it, um, but everyone shouldn't pull it out in
the game circumstance. Um. He has honed that tool to
the point where it is a weapon for him. UM.
(02:54):
And I think that's the component of the discussion worth
mentioning is boy he is really perfected at um in
the ways that a picture works on his pitch repertoire
rushes develop a rush repertoire, if you will. And Uh,
the spin is definitely a component of his menu so
developing and perfecting those pass rush moves, you know, building
(03:15):
on his repertoire. Is that offseason stuff? Is that something
that happens in the off season. It is continual um.
You know, maybe the guts of the framing of it
starts in the off season, but it is continual um.
And it is your skills and the talents that you
hone relative to the skills and talents um, and the
strengths and weaknesses of the people you compete against, and
(03:37):
so um. You know, in Alice's case, he has worked
to spend, spends a weapon for him, but it might
not show every week because of the skill set or
the talents of who he's going against. And so that's
why they work on multiple rushes. That's why they need
to have a repertoire at their disposal. And obviously the
spin is something that's in in his wheelhouse. So if
(03:57):
say the quarterback it's I'm more mobile guy than Andy Dalton,
might you or one of the other assistants or something,
tell him you can't do that in this game, because
I think when you talk about quarterback mobility, it's more
about the collective rush and not one individual. When we
talk about minimizing escape lanes, and you talk to the collective,
(04:19):
and so he may be able to spend the spend
maybe a weapon for him, but boy, it better be
a counter action by someone else to to close that
wind door escape lane. It's a collective. When you're talking
about minimizing quarterback mobility and escape lanes. In terms of
the snaphold, kick process on field goals and extra points,
what's considered varsity in terms of how long it takes?
(04:41):
You know, um, you know it's it's it differs UM
and I and I say that because you might have
a snapper with great velocity, but a holder whose mechanics
are a little bit slow. You might have a UM,
you might have the opposite of that. You might have
a kicker that starts to the ball a little bit slow,
so at the very outset or or the very beginning
(05:03):
of it, or what's most important is the total time,
and a collective um the total operation time. If that's unacceptable,
then you start looking at the components of the total
to see where the issues are. But we're talking about
fractions of a second. You know, point seven seconds is
great velocity on the snap. Point eight five is terrible.
(05:26):
You know, and so you get away from all that
minutia by analyzing the total opp time. And as long
as long as the total opp time is acceptable, you
stay away from breaking down the minute components of it,
because boy, you gotta have a itchy trigger finger when
you're talking about analyzing what component of snaphole kick is
letting you down from an operation time standpoint, It is
(05:48):
a fraction of a second we're talking about, But that
fraction of a second is inches. We're talking about a
guy coming off the edge too and being able to
get his hand on the ball. And so um, that's
just the world we live in, particularly this level of play.
So total off time, what's varsity? I'm not gonna get
into those details because that's that's a competitive advantage or disadvantage.
(06:09):
My my acceptable op time might be a little bit
different than someone else's. And so, um, pardon me if
I don't disclose sensitive information. A long snap though, I mean,
is he is the is a long snapper? In terms
of location? Is there like a strike zone you know
that that he needs to hit? Uh? Is low better
(06:29):
than high? What's what's how does that work? It's and again,
without getting too detailed, it's where the holder needs it
to operate. You know, if if if a holder operates
and his comfort zone is a ball placed in a
certain spot, then he works to hit to that spot
of somebody else's um area of comfort is in another area.
(06:51):
You know. It's it's that level of detail. It's about
the amount of time that that guy needs to catch
that ball, get the lacest pointed the right way and
putting it on the putting it on the ground, and
readying it for the kicker. And so it's different for
different people. Over the past several weeks, a popular topic
of questions for you is change. Are you favoring change?
(07:11):
Are you're gonna make any changes? When will you make
any changes? But is it your experience that when you're
asked about changes, it's almost always refers to personnel. And
then that's not necessarily what you mean when you say
there's gonna be changes or you're thinking about changes. Let's
let's be honest, Okay, when they're asking about change, that's
(07:32):
an angry mob that wants a hanging right right, they
want some pounds of flesh and and I understand that, um,
but my mentality is changed for the purposes of getting
better Uh, not to feed the angry mob. If changing
increases our chance of winning, If if changes are a
part of solution oriented things, as opposed to assigning blame,
(07:54):
then I'm all for change. Um. But shooting a hostage, UM,
assigning blame, that's less than professional, that's weak minded. Um,
that's not where we are. UM. When you're in it,
like we're in it, like I'm in it, I have
the resolve to maintain that posture. And when you're not
in it and you're rooting from afar, I understand that mentality,
(08:15):
but I don't share that mentality. Um. I'm open to
change always because I'm in pursuit of victory, but only
for the purposes of betterment and getting in to win,
not to lessen pressure on me or us. Not to
place blame elsewhere. Um, that's just not how we roll.
That's not the appropriate and professional way to roll. Um.
(08:38):
We're willing to do anything and everything schematics, personnel, leadership,
and an effort to increase our chances of winning, But
that has to be the reason. And assessing the challenge
posed by the Bengals, you said quote on the offensive
side of the ball, Obviously it starts with Joe Burrow
and finding ways to minimize his impact on the game.
(08:58):
Why would you disagree that maybe it starts with Joan
mixing and minimizing his impact on the game. You know,
it just feels like They're global fortune has changed with
the arrival of Joe Burrow. Joe Bixon has been there,
you know. Um, Joe Burrow is the variable that's different
culturally in Cincinnati, and anybody that denies that is kidding themselves.
(09:23):
And no disrespect to Joe Mixon. He is a quality back.
He's one of the best backs in the league. He's
capable of getting you. But in terms of UM, the
mojo of that group, UM, the swagger of that group, Um,
the heartbeat of that group is Joe Burrow offensively, defensively
and special teams. I'm talking about their football team, not
(09:44):
only their unit. So in the NFL, based on the
way the game is played, Um, is it pretty much
the rule of thumb that it always starts with the quarterback.
I think Derrick Henry would disagree. Yeah, that's it's whoever
the guy is, whoever the I is, And you look
at the Tennessee Titans, that's the guy in terms of
(10:04):
success in the red zone. Your offense is tied for
in the NFL with a touchdown percentage of forty six
point two percent. Your defense is six in the NFL
with a touchdown allowed percentage of Obviously, your preference would
be for those percentages to both be a hundred and zero.
But what would you consider to be varsity in that category?
(10:26):
You know, anything in the in the topiw of the league,
in any statistic is what we hunt. Anything in the
bottom a quadrant of the thirty two, Um, we gotta
stay away from. And that's any discussion. Um, those are
relative things because you're you're talking about relative to the
other other teams. Um, there's certain number are raw numbers
(10:50):
that we're interested in, but it's a relative game because
we're competing against people every week. UM, and so we're
talking about top eight, bottom eight or things that really
to get your attention. When Levan Bell was a young
running back, you explained to him that success at this
level is more about being lighter and highly conditioned than
it is about being big and strong. Over one off season, Uh,
(11:13):
Bell lost a bunch of weight in his career, took off.
I might that be a similar conscious conversation of a
nausey Harris at some point, not so much about conditioning,
but about his size. Now in different people. UM, you know,
I make those judgments based on a lot of things,
not just my naked eye, um, body mass index and
things of that nature. We just got a lot of
(11:35):
technology and so that discussion was exclusive to Levy on
Leban is a much smaller human from a frame standpoint,
um than Nausey and so um, I was talking about
the weight that Levian was carrying relative to his frame.
And so those are very individual discussions and we better
be really cautious relating one, you know, person to another
(11:56):
regarding those things. That's the Mike Tomlin Game Day Podcast.
Subscribe in, download new episodes every week, and check out
all of the other shows we have to offer on
the Steelers podcast network. That's available on the Steeler's mobile app,
the I Heart Radio app, or wherever you get your podcasts.
He's the Mike Tomlin Game Day Podcast with Steelers Digest
editor Bobby Labriola. Okay, coach, after wins such as last
Sundays over New Orleans, you always say something about will
there still are things for the team to work on
and improve upon? It's good to go into that work
with a win. Is there actually a noticeable difference in
the way the players come to work based on the
(00:22):
outcome of the previous game? Without a doubt? They're human? Um,
you know, football is a game. Our business is winning.
When you win, you take care of business. When you don't,
you're not. And so there's there's consequences of that, um.
And everybody understands that, really, and everybody embraces that. You know,
there's joy and winning. Um, that's what we do. But
(00:44):
what about you know, in terms of the work, is
it more productive if they're kind of happy and coming
to work or if they're honked off? You know, I
think both states of mine are useful. To be quite
honest with you, I think, Um, from a coach's perspective, Uh,
that's the approach I take. I know there's a certain
energy or attention that's that's capable of being captured when
(01:07):
we win, and I work to capture it. And I
also understand that there's a differing spirit or energy or
urgency to capture when we lose, and it's a coach's
job to to capture that as well. Sticking with the
game against the Saints for a minute, you also said
you were happy with the way the team began the
game because it came after a buy and that you
never can be sure about the start of a game
(01:29):
coming off a weekend without a game. You said, quote,
the team didn't waste any time warming up to the
competition and got into the flow of the game immediately.
Besides talking about that, is there a way to make
sure that that happens? You know, there are several things
that you do. You know, you work to get into
that that rhythm as you come off to buy um
(01:49):
that whins the Thursday, Friday, Saturday leading up to it,
and getting back into the structure of a game week.
But the reality is that there's a rhythm to this thing.
You're stepping into a stadium once a week, and over
the course of four or five months, man, you just
gathered that rhythm and missing an opportunity to do it.
Although it's a welcome breaking the action. Uh. There's always
(02:10):
like concern about you know, rust and things of that
nature warming up to the competition. And so I think
if you talk about the elephant in the room, there's
there's less risk of that becoming a negative factor in play.
And we talked openly about it. We acknowledge the potential
of that, all in an effort to reduce the potential
of it. Alex Highsmith had two sex last Sunday. Uh,
(02:32):
and on one of them he got to in Andy
Dalton on one of those by using a spin move. Uh.
Did Highsmith come to the NFL with that move or
did he developed it once he got here? You know,
he may have had it when he got here. Everyone
has it, um, but everyone shouldn't pull it out in
the game circumstance. Um. He has honed that tool to
the point where it is a weapon for him. UM.
(02:54):
And I think that's the component of the discussion worth
mentioning is boy he is really perfected at um in
the ways that a picture works on his pitch repertoire
rushes develop a rush repertoire, if you will. And Uh,
the spin is definitely a component of his menu so
developing and perfecting those pass rush moves, you know, building
(03:15):
on his repertoire. Is that offseason stuff? Is that something
that happens in the off season. It is continual um.
You know, maybe the guts of the framing of it
starts in the off season, but it is continual um.
And it is your skills and the talents that you
hone relative to the skills and talents um, and the
strengths and weaknesses of the people you compete against, and
(03:37):
so um. You know, in Alice's case, he has worked
to spend, spends a weapon for him, but it might
not show every week because of the skill set or
the talents of who he's going against. And so that's
why they work on multiple rushes. That's why they need
to have a repertoire at their disposal. And obviously the
spin is something that's in in his wheelhouse. So if
(03:57):
say the quarterback it's I'm more mobile guy than Andy Dalton,
might you or one of the other assistants or something,
tell him you can't do that in this game, because
I think when you talk about quarterback mobility, it's more
about the collective rush and not one individual. When we
talk about minimizing escape lanes, and you talk to the collective,
(04:19):
and so he may be able to spend the spend
maybe a weapon for him, but boy, it better be
a counter action by someone else to to close that
wind door escape lane. It's a collective. When you're talking
about minimizing quarterback mobility and escape lanes. In terms of
the snaphold, kick process on field goals and extra points,
what's considered varsity in terms of how long it takes?
(04:41):
You know, um, you know it's it's it differs UM
and I and I say that because you might have
a snapper with great velocity, but a holder whose mechanics
are a little bit slow. You might have a UM,
you might have the opposite of that. You might have
a kicker that starts to the ball a little bit slow,
so at the very outset or or the very beginning
(05:03):
of it, or what's most important is the total time,
and a collective um the total operation time. If that's unacceptable,
then you start looking at the components of the total
to see where the issues are. But we're talking about
fractions of a second. You know, point seven seconds is
great velocity on the snap. Point eight five is terrible.
(05:26):
You know, and so you get away from all that
minutia by analyzing the total opp time. And as long
as long as the total opp time is acceptable, you
stay away from breaking down the minute components of it,
because boy, you gotta have a itchy trigger finger when
you're talking about analyzing what component of snaphole kick is
letting you down from an operation time standpoint, It is
(05:48):
a fraction of a second we're talking about, But that
fraction of a second is inches. We're talking about a
guy coming off the edge too and being able to
get his hand on the ball. And so um, that's
just the world we live in, particularly this level of play.
So total off time, what's varsity? I'm not gonna get
into those details because that's that's a competitive advantage or disadvantage.
(06:09):
My my acceptable op time might be a little bit
different than someone else's. And so, um, pardon me if
I don't disclose sensitive information. A long snap though, I mean,
is he is the is a long snapper? In terms
of location? Is there like a strike zone you know
that that he needs to hit? Uh? Is low better
(06:29):
than high? What's what's how does that work? It's and again,
without getting too detailed, it's where the holder needs it
to operate. You know, if if if a holder operates
and his comfort zone is a ball placed in a
certain spot, then he works to hit to that spot
of somebody else's um area of comfort is in another area.
(06:51):
You know. It's it's that level of detail. It's about
the amount of time that that guy needs to catch
that ball, get the lacest pointed the right way and
putting it on the putting it on the ground, and
readying it for the kicker. And so it's different for
different people. Over the past several weeks, a popular topic
of questions for you is change. Are you favoring change?
(07:11):
Are you're gonna make any changes? When will you make
any changes? But is it your experience that when you're
asked about changes, it's almost always refers to personnel. And
then that's not necessarily what you mean when you say
there's gonna be changes or you're thinking about changes. Let's
let's be honest, Okay, when they're asking about change, that's
(07:32):
an angry mob that wants a hanging right right, they
want some pounds of flesh and and I understand that, um,
but my mentality is changed for the purposes of getting
better Uh, not to feed the angry mob. If changing
increases our chance of winning, If if changes are a
part of solution oriented things, as opposed to assigning blame,
(07:54):
then I'm all for change. Um. But shooting a hostage, UM,
assigning blame, that's less than professional, that's weak minded. Um,
that's not where we are. UM. When you're in it,
like we're in it, like I'm in it, I have
the resolve to maintain that posture. And when you're not
in it and you're rooting from afar, I understand that mentality,
(08:15):
but I don't share that mentality. Um. I'm open to
change always because I'm in pursuit of victory, but only
for the purposes of betterment and getting in to win,
not to lessen pressure on me or us. Not to
place blame elsewhere. Um, that's just not how we roll.
That's not the appropriate and professional way to roll. Um.
(08:38):
We're willing to do anything and everything schematics, personnel, leadership,
and an effort to increase our chances of winning, But
that has to be the reason. And assessing the challenge
posed by the Bengals, you said quote on the offensive
side of the ball, Obviously it starts with Joe Burrow
and finding ways to minimize his impact on the game.
(08:58):
Why would you disagree that maybe it starts with Joan
mixing and minimizing his impact on the game. You know,
it just feels like They're global fortune has changed with
the arrival of Joe Burrow. Joe Bixon has been there,
you know. Um, Joe Burrow is the variable that's different
culturally in Cincinnati, and anybody that denies that is kidding themselves.
(09:23):
And no disrespect to Joe Mixon. He is a quality back.
He's one of the best backs in the league. He's
capable of getting you. But in terms of UM, the
mojo of that group, UM, the swagger of that group, Um,
the heartbeat of that group is Joe Burrow offensively, defensively
and special teams. I'm talking about their football team, not
(09:44):
only their unit. So in the NFL, based on the
way the game is played, Um, is it pretty much
the rule of thumb that it always starts with the quarterback.
I think Derrick Henry would disagree. Yeah, that's it's whoever
the guy is, whoever the I is, And you look
at the Tennessee Titans, that's the guy in terms of
(10:04):
success in the red zone. Your offense is tied for
in the NFL with a touchdown percentage of forty six
point two percent. Your defense is six in the NFL
with a touchdown allowed percentage of Obviously, your preference would
be for those percentages to both be a hundred and zero.
But what would you consider to be varsity in that category?
(10:26):
You know, anything in the in the topiw of the league,
in any statistic is what we hunt. Anything in the
bottom a quadrant of the thirty two, Um, we gotta
stay away from. And that's any discussion. Um, those are
relative things because you're you're talking about relative to the
other other teams. Um, there's certain number are raw numbers
(10:50):
that we're interested in, but it's a relative game because
we're competing against people every week. UM, and so we're
talking about top eight, bottom eight or things that really
to get your attention. When Levan Bell was a young
running back, you explained to him that success at this
level is more about being lighter and highly conditioned than
it is about being big and strong. Over one off season, Uh,
(11:13):
Bell lost a bunch of weight in his career, took off.
I might that be a similar conscious conversation of a
nausey Harris at some point, not so much about conditioning,
but about his size. Now in different people. UM, you know,
I make those judgments based on a lot of things,
not just my naked eye, um, body mass index and
things of that nature. We just got a lot of
(11:35):
technology and so that discussion was exclusive to Levy on
Leban is a much smaller human from a frame standpoint,
um than Nausey and so um, I was talking about
the weight that Levian was carrying relative to his frame.
And so those are very individual discussions and we better
be really cautious relating one, you know, person to another
(11:56):
regarding those things. That's the Mike Tomlin Game Day Podcast.
Subscribe in, download new episodes every week, and check out
all of the other shows we have to offer on
the Steelers podcast network. That's available on the Steeler's mobile app,
the I Heart Radio app, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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