Tim Benz: Terry Bradshaw's contradictions about Mike Tomlin too ironic to ignore

You’ve probably heard the phrase “these are strange times” a lot in recent weeks.

They sure are. So strange there is even some weird stuff happening beyond the entire shutdown of the planet thing that’s been going on for the past month.

For instance, Terry Bradshaw’s interview on 93.7 The Fan last week.

The Steelers of the ’70s, and Bradshaw in particular, are the reason I became a sports fan. The reason I became as obsessed with the sports world as I did. To the degree that I’ve made my life-long passion for it my career.

So imagine my surprise when, by the time the interview was over, I found myself yelling at the radio over something Bradshaw said.

His comments about Ben Roethlisberger being a better quarterback than him? No. That was diplomacy and politics.

Or he genuinely meant it. He may even be right.

So was it his somewhat convoluted argument that Tom Brady wasn’t the greatest quarterback of all time? Not even as good as Dan Fouts?

No. I didn’t yell about that one. Maybe I just furrowed my brow and quizzically scratched my chin.

It’s when Bradshaw was asked about current Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin that I had to exclaim out loud, “Oh, Terry! Come … on! You have got to be kidding me!”

Bradshaw has been a frequent critic of Tomlin’s in the past. Most notably labeling him “a cheerleader guy” in 2016.

When asked about his heat toward Tomlin in recent years, he offered the following response.

“I was coached by a no-nonsense coach (Chuck Noll),” Bradshaw replied. “That has a great deal of impact on how I view coaches. Chuck Noll was a no-nonsense, in-your-face, ‘tough-a**’ coach. I see the chest bumping (from Tomlin) and all of that. Can you imagine me going over after a touchdown pass and chest bumping with Chuck?

“I did not like a lot of that from Tomlin. I want my head coach to be my head coach.”

Hold on, Terry. Wait a minute.

For the better part of four decades, we’ve been hearing you bemoan how hard it was playing under Noll. And how begrudging with praise he was. And how football wasn’t fun for you at times playing under him. And how you just wanted more of a pat on the back.

Take, for example, this quote from Bradshaw during his NFL Films “A Football Life,” which aired last September.

“People need to understand how hard it was to play for him. It wasn’t fun. Even winning wasn’t fun,” Bradshaw said in the feature. “I feared the hell out of him. No, I didn’t like him. I don’t know why he drafted me. I never was his kind of guy.

“I was a kid that needed a pat on the back. Not an a** chewing. And that’s what Chuck did to me. That’s not how I respond. That’s not what brings the best out of me.”

Sounds like a guy that wouldn’t have minded a chest bump after a touchdown bomb to John Stallworth or Lynn Swann, huh?

To be fair, Bradshaw admitted that he might be viewing things through a bit of a generation gap, and he did heap significant praise for how Tomlin handled the 2019 season with the slew of offensive injuries and departures that beset the Steelers, calling it his “finest coaching job.”

Plus, Bradshaw isn’t exactly the first person to wonder if Tomlin is too player friendly and runs too loose of a ship.

But this kind of contradiction has been typical of Bradshaw in his post-Steelers retirement years, hasn’t it?

He didn’t attend Art Rooney’s funeral, yet pointed skyward and gushed about him during his Hall of Fame induction. He stayed away from events at Three Rivers Stadium for years, finally came back for a few at Heinz Field between 2002-07, but has been absent for many since then. He has alternated between trying to bury the hatchet with Chuck Noll, saying he would never speak of his relationship with him publicly again, then talking about it, and not attending Noll’s memorial service either.

Even though he was in Pittsburgh at the time.

Now he’s insisting Tomlin is too much of a players’ coach … especially compared to Noll … even though Noll was never enough of a players’ coach for Bradshaw’s liking when they were working together.

Huh?

Yup. These are confusing times.

Times that only get more confusing the more often Bradshaw speaks.