Terry Bradshaw regrets making ‘cheerleader’ comment about Mike Tomlin

Terry Bradshaw has softened at least some of his criticism of Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin.

The iconic former quarterback said at a Fox press conference Wednesday that calling Tomlin a “great cheerleader guy” was a poor choice of words on his part.

“I wish I hadn’t had said ‘cheerleader,'” Bradshaw said, via Rob Owen of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “It was an instantaneous response. I referenced it to on the sideline the camera will catch him a lot of times and he’s gyrating so cheerleading was the first thing that came to my mind.

“Motivator would have been a better word. Listen, I’m in the business of saying things, giving opinions. I’m not going to stop because Mike Tomlin — and I played in Pittsburgh. I’m not going to back off. I did it to Ben Roethlisberger when he got the motorcycle crash. My job is not to hide from what I say, you know. Be a little bit better. … Shouldn’t have said the cheerleader part, but life moves on.”

Bradshaw also said back in December that Tomlin wasn’t a great coach, and he’s not backing down from that.

“‘Great’ is so overstated. There’s only one great coach in the NFL, and that’s that coach up in New England. That’s a great coach,” Bradshaw said. “If ‘great’ is the word that you’re looking for and I present them the trophy, I promise it will be tongue‑in‑cheek, and you’ll pick up on it: ‘Mike Tomlin, congratulations. You’re a great coach. You just won your second Super Bowl. What do you think? Are we buddies now?’ I don’t think so but, you know — maybe I would.”

Tomlin was quite unhappy with the comments, particularly the “cheerleader” remark. You can understand why, and apparently, so does Bradshaw now.