Steelers will aim for a role reversal
Mike Tomlin’s complaints that the coaches’ communications system went awry in New England in 2015. There also was the Patriots glee with a 34-13 victory in New England after Steelers safety Anthony Smith guaranteed a victory.
Wide receiver Antonio Brown added a fresh layer to the back-and-forth when he released a 17½-minute video he took Sunday night in the locker room immediately after the playoff game in Kansas City. During the video Brown apparently shot on his cell phone, Tomlin gave his postgame speech to the players.
In it, Tomlin can be heard mentioning the fact that the Patriots had extra time to prepare for the title game because they played Saturday and the Steelers played Sunday night in a game that was postponed by 7 hours and 15 minutes because of the weather.
“We spotted those a******* a day and a half,” Tomlin said in the locker room.
Naturally, the video went viral. The headline on CSNNE.com (Comcast SportsNet New England): “Tomlin Calls Patriots ‘A*******’ In Speech Antonio Brown Posts on Facebook.”
Per that network’s translation, Tomlin continued about the Patriots: “They played yesterday. Our game was moved to tonight. We gonna touch down at 4 o’clock in the f****** morning. So be it. We’ll be ready for that a**. But you ain’t gotta tell them we coming.”
Monday morning, when told of the video, Brady told Boston sports radio station WEEI-FM, “I don’t think that would go over well with our coach.”
ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported later Monday that Brown might be fined by the league for violating the NFL’s social-media policy, which prohibits players from posting on any social media platform until after postgame interviews have been completed.
Brown took care of letting the Patriots know all about them coming.
Other than the video being an outrageous violation of trust by Brown — besides Tomlin’s speech, some teammates can be seen in various stages of undress in the background — what might it all mean? It would seem the Patriots have not needed any extra measure of motivation in the past on their way to those four Super Bowl victories. Yet, Belichick once used another perceived slight by the Steelers as motivation when they first played in the AFC title game against them after the 2001 season.
That year, there was only one week between the championship games and the Super Bowl because of the postponement of regular-season games after the 9/11 attacks.
Steelers coach Bill Cowher gave his team a day early in the week before the AFC championship to take care of all the details that would involve a trip to the Super Bowl since there would be little time to do so after the game.
Belichick pounced on those plans and used it to whip up the Patriots, his players would later confirm. They insisted they never talked about the Super Bowl or prepared anything for that game until after they beat the Steelers to advance there. You can assume Belichick will jump on Tomlin’s postgame words to his team in Kansas City as much as media in New England have.
The payback for the Steelers will be rich if they pull off the upset Sunday at Gillette Stadium. If they lose, Tomlin’s words and Brown’s video will join other infamy in what would be yet another failure against Brady and the Patriots.