ATLANTA – Mike Tomlin has hopped out of the pressure-cooker existence as an NFL coach and discovered a whole new way of life.
“I didn’t know I was sleeping bad until I started sleeping good,” Tomlin told USA TODAY Sports, reflecting on a coaching grind that burned the midnight oil.
“I slept bad for so long. It was a normal state for me all of my adult life because of the job that I’ve held. I’ve just come to understand recently that I had been sleeping bad for the last 30 years.”
After 19 seasons as Pittsburgh Steelers coach, Tomlin, 54, is flowing well as a budding star for NBC’s Sunday Night Football team. He took a short break from preparations as analyst for the “Football Night in America” pregame show on Sunday, Oct. 11 – which of course included
monitoring NFL games in one of the production trucks – to reflect on his transition.
And naturally, he appeared to be well-rested and invigorated.
“I’m having a lot of fun,” he said. “Certainly, it’s work. I’m excited about the responsibility of being entertaining and educational.”
Mike Tomlin: Football fan
As much as Tomlin rolled in the NFL universe for two decades as a high-profile figure, this transition has revealed a new perspective. For one thing, he watches the NFL with the volume turned up, a striking contrast to years of viewing monitors with the sound muted or most often, from the bird’s-eye angles of coaching footage without sound.
“I get to absorb football again,” he said. “When I coached, I looked at global tape. Now I’m watching football, and there’s a difference. Very rarely when I was coaching would I watch things with the volume on, or I preferred the ‘All-22’ video as opposed to the television copy. As a lover of football, it is fun to absorb football in the ways that all other lovers of football absorb it these days.
“I’ve been watching a lot of football. I watch Monday night ball, Thursday night ball, I watch ball all day on Sunday. And that’s fun for me.”
Yeah, football junkies, Mike T. can relate to his audience.
“You know, I probably have more anxiety about doing this than I did coaching because I’m a novice at this,” Tomlin said. “I’m learning every week. I’ve got great co-workers, so it’s a fun process. I love to master new skills. And I like the little bit of anxiety that comes with a lack of experience.”
Would Mike Tomlin return to coaching?
Idle thought: For the hundreds of times I engaged with Tomlin over two decades, I’m pretty sure that I’ve never heard him use the word “fun” so many times over the course of 12 minutes.
Then again, this is apparently what can happen when you’re a natural at a new job and no longer need to worry about blitz-pickup schemes or a devastating injury to a key player.
He tapped into the fun theme even as he refused to engage in the notion that he would rank as the most attractive candidate on the market if he entertained a comeback during the NFL’s next hiring cycle.
“I’m just enjoying the day, bro,” Tomlin said.
As a coach, deft messaging was undoubtedly a key ingredient to his secret sauce. Be it in one-on-one interactions, team meetings, press conferences, interviews or public appearances, he was so adept at verbalizing images to illuminate words that hammered home a point. No, that doesn’t change now. And the next time he makes a reference to a memorable line from a hit movie won’t be the last time.
'Tomlin-isms' on TV
Then there are the signature phrases known as “Tomlin-isms” – “I want volunteers, not hostages,” comes to mind – that underscore a persona that adds sizzle to the credibility of winning 201 career games, including postseason, that ranks tied for 10th all-time.
In any event, it is easy to imagine the reduced stress level for Tomlin. Although he never had a losing season with the Steelers and has a Super Bowl victory and another Super Bowl appearance on his resume, his last playoff victory came nearly a decade ago, in January 2017, with the string of seven consecutive playoff losses fueling much heat – and perhaps contributing to some sleepless nights – in recent years.
Compared to that type of pressure, does the new role even feel like a job?
“I’m not going to say that it’s not a job,” he shot back. “I don’t want them to pay me less.”
Tomlin chuckled, not unlike he would during several of our exchanges over the years. Yet there was a point to be made.
“I’ve always appreciated this side, and respected this side,” he said of the media, mindful of interactions with the network broadcast teams that covered his games. “They are storytellers. As a matter of fact, man, over the years when I’d leave production meetings, I’d tell people, ‘Thank you for telling our story.’ So it’s good to be on the other side of it and be a storyteller, to continue to shape people’s individual relationships with the game, through entertainment.”
One of the must-see segments on the pregame show that producers have built around Tomlin is dubbed, “The News,” where he opines on hot topics. It is a segment born from Tomlin’s team meetings with the Steelers, when he would narrate against the backdrop of videotape to illustrate various teaching points.
“I used that as a means of distributing information as a coach,” he said. “So they thought it would be a cool and natural thing for me to do the same on this side of it. Sometimes, it’s good news. Sometimes, it’s bad news. But it’s a way to bring information in a less-threatening way. Because I always preface it with the fact that, hey, I don’t make the news, I simply report it.”
Mike Tomlin on the Browns 'disgusting' plays
Tomlin did make some news, if you will, when he poked fun at the Cleveland Browns – a longtime AFC North rival – in discussing their lopsided loss at Jacksonville in Week 1.
“In the words of my good friend JuJu Smith-Schuster, the Browns is the Browns,” Tomlin said on the air, with a nod to the remark his former receiver made before a 2020 playoff matchup.
The week after Tomlin’s take, when Cleveland upset Tampa Bay, new Browns coach Todd Monken used an expletive to fire back and added, “The guys took that to heart.”
Tomlin laughed it out, responding, “I’m glad I can still motivate, although I’m not coaching anymore.”
Clearly, though, Tomlin is bringing an authenticity that allows him to provide sharp analysis while he contends there is nothing personal, and no agendas, behind commentary that may cast some of his former peers in a negative light.
During the telecast on Sunday, Tomlin said he was “disgusted” by the sequence in overtime of the Commanders-Giants game that ended in a 27-27 tie. His said he “threw up in my mouth" watching a Cam Skattebo fumble that cost the Giants a chance to attempt a game-winning field goal. Then he didn’t pull punches in criticizing the mishandling of the clock by the Commanders as time expired without a field goal try.
When the show’s host, Maria Taylor, asked Tomlin to explain how a coach should handle such a situation when in range for a potential game-winning kick, he detailed that it was a matter positioning the football on the hash mark most comfortable for the kicker. He concluded, “You send the kicker out and you go home. And it’s as simple as that.”
Mike Tomlin on the Steelers
It will be interesting to see how hard Tomlin might crack on the Steelers if some situation warrants criticism. Strikingly, though, Tomlin insists he has no deeper perspective on the Steelers (3-2) that he does other team, despite so many of his former players are now guided by his successor, Mike McCarthy.
“That may be surprising to most,” he maintained.
Surely. Especially when Aaron Rodgers wore a shirt bearing the letters “DGBTTF” to his press conference following a victory against the Colts on Sunday and said it was a way to pay homage to Tomlin, who would repeat, “Don’t get beat to the flat.”
And last spring, before Rodgers announced that he would reunite with McCarthy and play a 22nd NFL season, Tomlin predicted as much, given Rodgers’ love for the game.
“I’m more of a process guy,” Tomlin explained. “And the process creates buy-in for me. I’m not part of their weekly process, so I generally watch the games no different than when I’m watching any other team because I have no recall from a prep standpoint. How they divided up the labor that week, what they viewed as a sticking point relative to engineering victory. So if I’m not part of the process it doesn’t allow me to go to another space in terms of how I absorb the game.”
That all of the Steelers used to be his players?
“I know the Ravens very well, too,” he said. “I know Cincinnati’s personnel, too. But because I’m not part of their seven-day cycle, it doesn’t elevate my viewing to a different level.”
Response to Mike Tomlin's Minecraft world has been 'overwhelming'
There’s another sports cycle consuming Tomlin away from the NFL grid. His daughter, Harley, is a sophomore gymnast at Georgia. He and wife, Kiya, a former gymnast who met Mike when they were students at William and Mary, are avid supporters – and typically not far away, given that they purchased a home in Athens, Ga.
“It’s the absolute best thing that’s transpired in my life in 2026,” Tomlin said. “I get an opportunity to support my daughter as she lives out her dream of being an SEC gymnast. I don’t have the words for awesome it is. It’s been a fun process for us, having time as a family, being able to do things we haven’t been able to do in the past.”
Tomlin, who has two older sons, Dino and Mayce, has also found another claim to fame with a new YouTube channel that details the elaborate Minecraft city that he developed over 12 years – initially as a hobby to connect with his children.
Well, with Mayce convincing his father to publicly reveal his computer-generated creation, the channel has gone viral. As of Wednesday, the first episode, which debuted in September, has attracted more than 3.5 million views.
It’s no wonder that Mike Tirico, SNF’s play-by-play man, dubbed Tomlin, “Minecraft Mike.”
“I thought it was little subculture, to be quite honest with you,” Tomlin said of the reaction. “I didn’t realize it would be as interesting to the masses as it has been. The response has been overwhelming, probably overwhelmingly positive.
“I didn’t realize how many dads used it in the same way that I used it in an effort to engage with their kids.”
Chalk it up as another lesson from the homefront. And more lessons loom. That seems evident when Tomlin was asked about Kiya, a fashion designer with her own clothing line.
“She’s my toughest critic, and I appreciate it,” Tomlin said. “I get feedback from here weekly, and I need it.”
Now it’s fair to wonder how much feedback Kiya may have offered for the previous job.
“None,” Tomlin said. “This is new. She judges my fashion, of course. As a coach, I just wore what was equipment room-issued. There was not a lot to capture her attention. But she pays attention to what I wear and how I wear it, and other things in this space.”
Which might represent a whole different type of pressure.
Follow Bell on X: @JarrettBell
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Free from coaching, 'Minecraft Mike' Tomlin is having fun again | Exclusive
