Mike Tomlin's End of Season Press Conference

By: Michael Stiffler, @Stiffeezy_ on Twitter

SteelerNation.com

It is painful to say, but this was the last Mike Tomlin press conference of the 2020 season. Just three days after the Pittsburgh Steelers got handled by the division rival Cleveland Browns, Tomlin addressed the media to give his final words on the season. He opened up by acknowledging the the 2020 season was a difficult one but wanted to give praise to the medical staff for their handling of the COVID-19 protocols and relaying that information to the team. Secondly, he gave praise to the IT department for assisting with the protocols to help the different avenues they had to go through for teaching and learning. While the press conference barely touched on the defeat, Tomlin did say he is disappointed and the loss is still tough to swallow.

Instead the overall theme to the press conference was about change. No specific changes were discussed as end of year meetings will be had this week and into next week. Tomlin did say every aspect would be looked at from schematics to personnel, to how they conduct business. When questioned about the repetitiveness of early playoff losses and end of season struggles that have become a common occurrence for the Steelers, he did say it is something he is going to look into this offseason on what can be done to avoid it happening again. There were no specifics about the possibility of retirement from players like Maurkice Pouncey and Ben Roethlisberger, he said those conversations are still to be had. Questions about the salary cap came up on how they will navigate those waters but again Tomlin's answer was vague in the sense that he is still getting specific details of the salary cap and the ramifications COVID-19 has on them. The press conference gave no real sense of direction on where the Steelers are going just vague answers that indicate they still need to look into things. The only telling sign was a quote from Tomlin which he said, "I'm not going to maintain the status quo and hope that the outcome changes. That's the definition of insanity." Now Steelers fans will have to wait and see where the chips fall.

Watch the full press conference below.

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