Getty Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin greeting former New York Jets head coach Todd Bowles at mid-field after an NFL game.
It is customary for opposing head coaches in the NFL to get asked questions about their upcoming opponents at their weekly press conferences.
However this week it seemed that Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin used the presser as an opportunity to perform some reverse psychology ahead of the New York Jets matchup.
Mike Tomlin Trolls the Jets Safety Group
Tomlin does stuff a little differently at his weekly presser.
He starts off with a long monologue discussing the previous game and then he transitions into a full roster breakdown going position-by-position through the entire team he will be facing.
When he got to the Jets safety group, Tomlin had some interesting things to say:
“The safety tandem of Jordan Whitehead and Lamarcus Joyner, both really uh good tacklers. Both are really good feel guys in terms of having an innate feel for the game. Being able to play downhill into the run and also good versus the play-pass.”
#Steelers HC Mike Tomlin (@CoachTomlin) said the #Jets safety tandem has stood out on tape, ‘both Jordan Whitehead & Lamarcus Joyner are really good tacklers’ 🧐 + ‘both have an innate feel for the game’ 😐: 🎥 @steelers #NYJvsPIT #HereWeGo #TakeFlight
Those would all be very nice things to say if they were true. However, through the first three weeks of the season, Joyner and Whitehead have proven to be very poor tacklers and have stunk in coverage.
Zack Rosenblatt of The Athletic shared a damning stat on Twitter revealing that between the two they have missed 10 tackles on the season and have allowed quarterbacks to dice them up in the passing game.
#Jets safeties this season…
– Jordan Whitehead: 6 missed tackles, 150.3 passer rating allowed.
– Lamarcus Joyner: 4 missed tackles, 158.3 passer rating allowed.
This led a lot of people to call out the coach on Twitter saying he’s simply trolling the Jets and in a way telling them indirectly that the Steelers will be going after the safeties throughout their scheduled matchup on Sunday.
@BoyGreen25 @CoachTomlin @steelers he’s trolling for sure
Twitter user MTN-Tuzz93 called it the “ol’ Belichick strategy”:
@BoyGreen25 @CoachTomlin @steelers The ol’ Belichick strategy
! said, “he’s about to go at them so much it’s not even funny” on Twitter:
@BoyGreen25 @CoachTomlin @steelers He’s about to go at them so much it’s not even funny.
Mike Turtle Emert said, “bro, for real for real. He was being generous. Great tacklers meaning we’re going to roast the s*** out of them in coverage.”
@50TWC @BoyGreen25 @CoachTomlin @steelers 😂😂😂😂 Bro, frfr. He was being generous. “Great Tacklers” meaning “we’re going to roast the 💩 out of them in coverage”
Bhavik Upadhyaya said this is a classic case of “reverse psychology” where you tell the media one thing and tell your team something different behind the scenes:
@BoyGreen25 @CoachTomlin @steelers Nah he is doing what bill does reverse psychology and praise em to the media while in meetings saying other things
Mike Tomlin Sounded off on Jets QB Zach Wilson
Although not everything Tomlin said was hidden messaging at his press conference. He actually had a very interesting thing to say about the return of Jets quarterback Zach Wilson.
After missing the first three weeks of the 2022 season due to a knee injury the former BYU passer will make his debut in Pittsburgh.
Tomlin said bluntly that there are a lot of “unknowns” with facing a quarterback with that limited amount of tape in the pros. However, he also stated that the mystery surrounding Wilson goes both ways.
Tomlin simply stated that the Jets haven’t seen Wilson yet this season either so they don’t even know what they are going to get.
That is a very astute observation by the Steelers head coach and I’ll simply say this, I’d much rather have the unknown with Wilson than the known with Joe Flacco.
I’ve appeared on a few Steelers podcasts this week and the messaging has been the same, they preferred to play Wilson versus Flacco. They believe the unproven youngster will fold like a used lawn chair in the spotlight.
From a Jets perspective, I’ve seen enough of Flacco for the rest of my life it’s time to see what the kid has. There is a mystery afoot that can yield both good and bad results.