This got kind of pushed aside for me as training camp opened, but Pittsburgh's favorite badass football coach showed his more progressive side and became one of the very few NFL coaches to join Twitter. He's @CoachTomlin and according to him, we'll get "no BS" from the Steelers' man in charge. That's a shame because BS is way more interesting than pre-packaged company-line updates. We'll see how Tomlin's personality takes to everyone's favorite global chat room in due time, I'm sure.
A few things to think about if you're considering interacting with Tomlin:
– Don't get all mad at him if the Steelers lose. I can almost guarantee he doesn't need to be told when something doesn't work. This is his job, he's got a handle on it.
– Don't try and get any insider advice from him for online football betting. I'm not sure if Tomlin is going to end up responding to followers, but the NFL doesn't take kindly to their own personell getting in on the gambling fun. There are safer resources.
– Keep an eye on how he interacts with his players. You know he's usually buddy-buddy with his guys on the sidelines, but how excellent would it be to see him chastise Maurkice Pouncey for being an ass? Or Mark Madden for being just plain awful?
– Don't bother him for RT's and follow-backs (if you do not know what these are, it's 2013 and you should probably get familiar with Twitter). So far his entire network consists of the Steelers' official Twitter, Burt Lauten the PR director, and just about all of his players.
Also of note is that he doesn't follow guys like Hines Ward or James Farrior, both of whom have official Twitter accounts. Given the nature of his following list, it's a safe bet that Lauten just set him up with all of his players and Tomlin likely isn't too interested in branching out. That would suggest that he's either too busy with training camp to worry about figuring out this Twitter machine (this is what offseasons are for, coach!), or he's not terribly interested into expanding himself into an e-celebrity like some sports people have done in the past few years.
Speculation disguised as journalism is a fun hobby; I can see how Eklund got into it.
