{"id":927540,"date":"2026-07-11T09:42:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T09:42:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/927540\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T09:42:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T09:42:18","slug":"was-a-looseness-going-around-joe-haden-says-accountability-was-problem-for-steelers-under-mike-tomlin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/927540\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Was A Looseness Going Around’: Joe Haden Says ‘Accountability’ Was Problem For Steelers Under Mike Tomlin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mike Tomlin\u2019s tenure with the Pittsburgh Steelers is over. It brought a lot of success, including zero losing seasons and a Super Bowl win. However, Tomlin wasn\u2019t without his flaws,<\/a> especially during the second half of his time in Pittsburgh. Tomlin raised the Steelers\u2019 floor, but their ceiling under him felt capped. He\u2019s part of the reason why they haven\u2019t won a playoff game in almost a decade. Former Steelers corner Joe Haden is a Tomlin supporter, but there was one big issue that he noticed during his time in Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I got to Pittsburgh, it was years and years into Coach Tomlin being there, and the one thing that I could see where you needed a new voice [was] the accountability,\u201d Haden said Friday on his Deebo and Joe podcast.<\/a> \u201cEverything needs to be tight. There was a looseness that was going around. That looseness is a reason where errors come in\u2026If star players were doing certain things, you just gotta nip it in the bud.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings like meetings, late stuff\u2026 When the vet leeway is getting to a point where it turns [into] almost blatant disrespect to where your team is seeing stuff like, \u2018We can\u2019t be moving like this as a team, vet aside.\u2019 When you get a new coach in there, he\u2019s not rocking. You set that standard from the T.J. Watts to the Ben Roethlisbergers to anybody on the team where there\u2019s no leeway for nobody.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haden was with the Steelers from 2017-2021, and Tomlin was well established as one of the league\u2019s best coaches at that point. However, when looking at some of the players on those teams, it\u2019s easy to see what Haden is talking about.<\/p>\n

Antonio Brown is the best example. He was arguably the NFL\u2019s best receiver during that time, but he also had a huge attitude problem. Tomlin is often credited for being able to handle Brown\u2019s big personality, but he might\u2019ve made some missteps along the way. Tomlin shouldn\u2019t be blamed for how things ended for Brown in Pittsburgh, but perhaps he should\u2019ve used a firmer hand at times.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the first time that someone has suggested Tomlin should have held players more accountable, either. Former NFL quarterback Nick Foles brought the<\/a> idea up late last year. Many of the things he said he heard match up with what Haden is saying.<\/p>\n

The difference is that Haden had a front-row seat to Tomlin\u2019s coaching style for years. He was with the team when things got bad with Brown and Le\u2019Veon Bell. He\u2019s not speaking from second-hand information.<\/p>\n

Tomlin being a player\u2019s coach was a double-edged sword. It endeared him to many, but others took advantage of it. We\u2019ll see if things are different under Mike McCarthy. He\u2019s already made some changes as the Steelers\u2019 head coach. Whether that produces results or not remains to be seen.<\/p>\n

A new voice might be just what the Steelers need, though. That\u2019s partly why Tomlin stepped down. He wants to give the players the<\/a> best chance to win, even if that\u2019s without him. No matter his faults, that\u2019s commendable.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mike Tomlin\u2019s tenure with the Pittsburgh Steelers is over. It brought a lot of success, including zero losing…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":927541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[39],"tags":[374141,348505,17666,1232,1545,62,939,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-927540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-deebo-and-joe","tag-joe-haden","tag-mike-tomlin","tag-nfl","tag-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-sports","tag-trending","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116900695248071860","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=927540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/927541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=927540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=927540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=927540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}