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.
