New Pittsburgh Steelers OLB Preston Smith is excited to play for HC Mike Tomlin, joining a long list of veterans who embrace that opportunity when they come here. Long known as a players’ coach, Tomlin tends to have a good rapport with players around the league. It reaches an entirely new level, however, once he has them in the locker room, the meeting room, and especially his office.
The Steelers just acquired Smith, a 10th-year veteran pass rusher, in a trade with the Green Bay Packers. He provides valuable depth behind T.J. Watt and Alex Highsmith, but Tomlin will have him ready to run through walls whenever he is on the field.
“I always admired [Tomlin] in his work and just to be a coach like him and make it to this level and inspire people like me to someday be a head coach on this level”, Smith said yesterday, via the Steelers’ website. “I always admired Mike Tomlin from afar, and just being here able to work with him, being in the first team meeting for me and seeing how things go around this thing, I love him as a coach already”.
Considering the Steelers only acquired Smith on Tuesday afternoon, he hasn’t even had much time to interact with Mike Tomlin. But he did have that meeting time, and as he explained, this isn’t his first encounter with the Steelers’ head coach.
“I met Mike on a pre-draft visit in 2015”, Smith explained. “We had a sit-down talk on one of those pre-draft visits and we were just talking. I just love his energy, of course who he is”.
Preston Smith went in the second round in 2015 to the Washington Commanders but has spent the majority of his career with the Green Bay Packers, who typically run a system similar to the Steelers. Green Bay switched to 4-3 system this year, however, which prompted Smith to ask for a trade. Now he gets to play in a system he has long admired.
“I’ve been watching this team for a long time”, Smith said of the Steelers. “When you watch film or you see a team playing big games, you see their play style. It’s one of those things where you’d just be like, ‘Man, I’d love to play in that system’. I love this system, I love this play style, and I’m new to this team and I love this team already”.
It’s always nice to hear such things from a new player, whether he is a veteran or not. Preston Smith does have that “Steelers player” feeling and is surely a player Mike Tomlin has monitored for the past decade. Spending his career in the NFC prior to the trade, they haven’t seen much of each other over the years. But I expect they will have a great working relationship, at least for the rest of this season.
