T.J. Watt Tells Rich Eisen Stunning Truth about Steelers Practice Habits

Over the last few weeks, multiple guys have called out the Steelers’ attitude and the issues within the locker room. Most notably, Minkah Fitzpatrick lit up the locker room for not showing up daily. But according to Rich Eisen, another one of their leaders said the same thing.

T.J. Watt said that he could not believe some of the team did not ingest Tomlin’s messages and what he preached daily to them. More importantly, he does not think that the guys want to show up and practice hard like they need to do when they want to win games.

“Is he coaching them up? Absolutely. He [Tomlin] is basically going into these meetings and being a dynamic leader and trying to inspire to the point where TJ Watt said it was ‘wild.’ He used that phrase, it’s wild to him that some of the players upon hearing that [message] don’t respond in a way on a field or on a practice field,” Eisen said of the interaction.

“He used that word, he [said it was] wild that some of them don’t want to practice is what he said. Or want to practice in a way that everyone is supposed to practice. He [Watt] said that this past week, everyone did do that. And then you saw the result. Now you can sit there and say that Tomlin has gotta change his way. T.J. Watt also said that the younger generation takes criticism personally. He didn’t call it a problem, I just inferred it was. And then you see guys on the field like George Pickens turning down contact on a running play.”

That’s a revealing sentiment if true, and it is likely something that Watt will follow up with this week when he speaks to the Steelers media. Regardless, from Tomlin to Watt to Fitzpatrick, leaders up and down the organization have called out tendencies like this among the players, and yet, nothing seems to get fixed.