Former Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Joe Haden made an eye-opening claim about Mike Tomlin on his Deebo & Joe podcast . According to Haden, accountability was a major problem for the Steelers under Tomlin.
"When I got to Pittsburgh, it was years and years into Coach Tomlin being there, and the one thing I could where you needed a new voice [was] the accountability," Haden said. "Everything needs to be tight. There was a looseness that was going around. That looseness is a reason where errors come in… If star players were doing certain things, you just gotta nip it in the bud.
"Things like meetings, late stuff… When the vet leeway is getting to a point where it turns almost blatant disrespect to where your team is seeing stud like, 'We can't be moving like this as a team, vet aside.' When you get a new coach in there, he's not rocking. You set a standard from the T.J. Watts to the Ben Roethlisbergers to anybody on the team where there's no leeway for nobody."
Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin during a game against the Baltimore Ravens on Jan. 4, 2025. — Ed Thompson / Steelers Now
Antonio Brown famously got special treatment under Tomlin. He even admitted on several occasions that he doesn't treat every player the same.
"I treat people fairly," Tomlin said in 2019, according to Aditi Kinkhabwala . "I don't aspire to treat everyone exactly the same."
Haden played for the Steelers from 2017-21, so he was there during the Brown days until things went off the rails at the end of the 2018 season.
Steelers legend James Harrison , who is an often critic of Tomlin, thinks his former head coach was a good coach but not elite. That's why he believes Tomlin does not belong in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
"I can't give him a Hall of Fame coach because he hasn't made disciples," Harrison said in January. "You're telling me you're a Hall of Fame coach, but no one has followed you? That can't be the thing. He's the only coach that has coached this long and does not have a tree. Guys are emotionally attached to him, not performance.
"A great coach, the measurement of greatness, it's not based on personal experiences and relationships you've had with them. It is purely what you did as a coach. Did you get championships? Did you build disciples? Wins and losses is great, but those wins and losses have to add up to championships. A Hall of Fame coach should be making history for having the longest losing streak in playoff history."
This article originally appeared on Steelers Now : Ex-Steelers Cornerback Claims Accountability Was Problem Under Mike Tomlin: 'There Was a Looseness'
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