Mike Tomlin won’t apologize for Steelers bias on NBC: ‘Everybody knows where my heart is’
Credit: Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images
Six months into his second act as the marquee attraction of NBC’s Sunday night studio show, Mike Tomlin remains every bit the Pittsburgh Steelers partisan he was when he prowled the sideline at Acrisure Stadium.
Nor does he intend to apologize for it. The former Steelers head coach, who walked away after the 2025 season with 19 seasons, a Super Bowl championship, and a 193-114 record to his name, planted that flag in a fitting, if somewhat ironic, setting: the latest episode of New Heights, the Amazon-owned Wondery podcast hosted by Jason and Travis Kelce. And few people in the current NFL media ecosystem understand the tug-of-war between a broadcasting job and a beloved former franchise better than the elder Kelce, whose Eagles allegiance has become a recurring source of consternation for viewers this fall.
After acknowledging that his older brother had been “taking a lot of sh*t,” Travis turned the question on their guest and asked whether Tomlin had caught any grief for tilting toward the Steelers since joining NBC’s Football Night in America.
“To be honest with ya, I don’t care if I do,” Tomlin said, as transcribed by Pittsburgh Steelers on SI. “How can you be somewhere 19 years, man, and had really a personal stake in most of the guys being there and not care for ’em? Not root for ’em? Not be for ’em? I’m not gonna pretend that I’m not. I can’t do that. Certainly, I got a job to do, and I’m gonna do it. But everybody knows where my heart is and where my support is, and I’m not apologizing for that.”
That probably won’t come as much of a shock to anyone who has watched Tomlin on NBC this season. During his first appearance on the network back in April, he predicted Aaron Rodgers would return to the Steelers. After the regular-season opener in September, he previewed Pittsburgh’s game against the Falcons by taking a shot at Atlanta quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, reminding viewers that Tagovailoa’s last trip to Pittsburgh ended with a loss and a benching, before picking the Steelers. He’s also roasted the Cleveland Browns by way of former Steelers receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster, and on Sunday night, he refused to say Derrick Henry’s name, calling the Ravens running back who gave his defenses fits for years “the Big Runner” until Maria Taylor had to clarify who he was talking about.
Kelce, who retired in 2024 after 13 seasons as the Eagles’ center and joined ESPN’s Monday Night Countdown that fall, has answered the same criticism with repeated on-air mea culpas. During his first season with the network, he apologized to Falcons fans after ESPN built much of its Eagles-Falcons Monday Night Football coverage around his return to Philadelphia.
It happened again at halftime of the Eagles’ 27-7 loss to the Chicago Bears on Sept. 28. With Philadelphia down three, Kelce laid out how the Eagles could get back into the game while repeatedly calling them “we,” until Pat McAfee pointed out the pronoun and Kelce apologized to Bears fans on air. Ryan Clark, Kelce’s former Countdown colleague, defended his use of “we” on X the next day, and McAfee opened his eponymous show that Wednesday with a heated response to anyone who had taken his halftime jab as a serious criticism.
Kelce later used New Heights to assure Jacksonville Jaguars fans of his impartiality ahead of Jaguars-Eagles at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, his first assignment calling a game involving the franchise for which he played 13 seasons. But during Jacksonville’s 19-17 victory at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Oct. 11, Kelce, working his second NFL Network broadcast alongside Dave Pasch and Kurt Warner one week after his booth debut on Colts-Commanders, slipped into the first-person plural once more as the Eagles handed possession back to the Jaguars. And it wasn’t for lack of effort behind the scenes. Jeff Dufine, the longtime ESPN producer overseeing the international game broadcasts, had told The Philadelphia Inquirer prior to kickoff that the production team was already addressing the habit.
“We’ve tried to get the ‘we’ out of him,” Dufine said.
Where Kelce has issued multiple on-air apologies and pledged neutrality in advance of Eagles assignments, Tomlin used the Kelces’ own platform to state that he intends to do neither, and NBC has given no public indication that it will ask otherwise of the centerpiece of a Football Night in America production that travels to every Sunday Night Football site this season.
Kelce, as it happens, will call Steelers-Saints in France on Oct. 25.
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