Mike Tomlin Clearly Tired Of Talking About Steelers WR Diontae Johnson
Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin has been around the NFL for a long time. He's had some of the most difficult locker room personalities on his teams through the years. But none of them seemed to rattle him like Diontae Johnson.
Tomlin held a locker room together that contained Ben Roethlisberger, Le'Veon Bell and Antonio Brown. Bell once quit football for a year to pursue a rap career while demanding more NFL money.
As far as Antonio Brown, I'm not sure how to even characterize what he is anymore. Roethlisberger had his share of off-the-field issues, too.
Again, though, the great strength of Mike Tomlin is an ability to get players to buy into what he's selling. At least, it was. Diontae Johnson has seemingly no interest in that. And at this point, Tomlin appears done trying.
Two weeks ago, Johnson gave up on a play in a way that you rarely see from professional athletes. Sure, guys sometimes take plays off, but not so blatantly as Johnson. They at least pretend to try. Johnson couldn't even muster that.
Then, on Sunday, Johnson launched into a full dance routine celebration after scoring a (virtually) meaningless touchdown that put the Steelers down 14 points with under five minutes left. Pittsburgh's offense did not touch the ball again.
On Monday, a reporter asked Tomlin about Johnson's celebration. First, he said that he wasn't aware of the celebration. Then, he turned it back on the reporter and asked his opinion of Johnson's celebration.
During that exchange, Tomlin apparently became quite aware of the celebration and simply stated that he did have an opinion, but not one that wanted to "share with ."
Despite all the problems in Pittsburgh with Johnson and the putrid offense, the Steelers still currently hold an AFC Wild Card spot. In fact, they own the top Wild Card seed in the conference.
Plus, Tomlin needs just two wins in the team's final five games to extend his ridiculous streak of non-losing seasons to 17.
Although, they're going to have to do it without quarterback Kenny Pickett, who underwent ankle surgery on Monday.
Given the state of the roster, getting this Steelers team to nine wins might be Tomlin's best coaching job to date.