'He’s a good coach, man,” Fitzpatrick told USA TODAY Sports. “I like him a lot. He relates to players. He talks a lot. Communicates a lot.”
Jarrett BellPITTSBURGH – Minkah Fitzpatrick had packed his belongings, headed for the exit on Sunday night after yet another signature performance when Mike Tomlin popped out of the training room. The Steelers coach was beaming. And pointing from across the room. With both hands.
Fitzpatrick, who has sizzled since the Steelers obtained him from Miami in September, sounds a lot like many players over the years have in describing Tomlin. Sure, former linebacker James Harrison might serve up a dissenting view after feeling dissed by the coach during his final season in Pittsburgh. And there’s no telling what Antonio Brown thinks. But by and large, Tomlin has been the coach working the room – even during mid-week lunch breaks – to get a pulse on his team.
Never mind. Look at them now. With Ben Roethlisberger’s season ended in Week 2 by an elbow injury that required surgery, with Brown’s eccentricities and production long gone, with Le’Veon Bell’s replacement, James Conner, battling through injuries, the Steelers are riding a four-game winning streak. Given the circumstances, it’s looking to be Tomlin’s best coaching job yet, at least to this point.
But the evidence and patterns are revealing enough. The Steelers started the winning streak with a rookie quarterback, Devlin Hodges, pressed to play at the Chargers while Roethlisberger’s second-year replacement, Mason Rudolph, recovered from a concussion. They might not have won the past two games without touchdowns from Fitzpatrick, sorely needed because the offense has struggled.
"The only team that really smashed us up was the Patriots,” Haden told USA TODAY Sports, referring a 33-3 setback at New England on opening night. “After that, we lost by 2, 4 and in overtime to Baltimore. It wasn’t like we were getting smashed. We just had to get over that little hump, to make sure we get a play to fall our way and we can win. So, we were never really down on ourselves. We’ve just got to finish it. Now, we’re starting to close games.
In the fourth quarter on Sunday, after the Rams scored a safety to cut the margin to two points, Tomlin flirted with disaster. In fact, some would even call it crazy as he went for it on 4th-and-1 from Pittsburgh’s 34-yard line. Then Rudolph rolled right and floated a pass in the flat to Trey Edmunds for a 6-yard gain that kept alive a 14-play, 8-minute field goal drive that provided the final margin.
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