Mike Tomlin is opening up about his love of Minecraft.
The former Pittsburgh Steelers head coach got really into Minecraft after seeing his kids play it when they were in middle school. Over the past 12 years or so, Tomlin has gotten into the game, building an entire city – something that would likely take thousands of hours of game work.
“Over the course of time, they got just disinterested in the game. They go on to high school and so forth and off to college. Their participation became less and less over the years. My participation probably at times increased,” Tomlin said. “At different times over the course of a 12-month calendar, I would have different levels of fixation on this.”
Tomlin sees the game as therapeutic.
“I’m not a big TV watcher,” he says. “It allowed me to detach from the realities and the pressures of life.”
Tomlin made sure everything in his city was detail-oriented.
“You’ll find appropriate number of public restrooms and stuff throughout all my public facilities, men’s and women’s restrooms,” he says. “Not anything over the top in terms of detail … but it was important that I represented that.”
But NFL fans are wondering if Tomlin’s gameplay impacted his team’s on-field performance.
Tomlin’s head coaching record pre and post-Minecraft play
NFL analyst Warren Sharp pointed out Tomlin’s coaching record from before he started playing the game and from after he started playing the game.
It’s a bit troubling.
Former Steelers star Le’Veon Bell was among those calling him out, too.
“we were tryna win super bowls and coach T was on minecraft building cities 😭,” he shared on X.
Perhaps Tomlin’s video game obsession had little to no impact on his team’s performance, but it’s fun to look at, that’s for sure.
