Steelers DT Cam Heyward: Tomlin Is Studying John Madden to Prep for New TV Gig

Mike Tomlin is approaching his Fox broadcasting debut the way he used to approach Steelers training camp, Cam Heyward told The Rich Eisen Show, and the Pittsburgh defensive tackle is convinced his head coach is built for the booth.

"He's going to be great. He's going to be awesome," Heyward said of Tomlin, who has been preparing for the new TV gig with the kind of homework that Heyward says he tried to talk him out of. "I was talking to him two days ago and he was saying he was studying John Madden just for purposes. He wants to do things the right way and he's always had a lot of respect. I'm like, Mike T, you don't need to study anybody. You do things the right way."

The expectation, Heyward suggested, is that Tomlin develops the kind of broadcast vocabulary Madden built his second career on. "He's going to have his sayings," Heyward said. "There's going to be a standard standard. There's going to be a two dogs one bone. You know, this is popcorn." Don't expect a turducken, though. "He ain't doing that."

What Heyward kept circling back to was the room Tomlin commands when he's actually coaching, and why that translates. "Best broadcast coach meetings I've ever had are with Mike Tomlin," Rich said, citing his own time around Tomlin on Hard Knocks. "I sit there and I think to myself, I would want to play for him." Heyward agreed: "He's just about ball, man. And so now he's got a job where he talks about ball, he's going to be great at it. He gets giddy when he talks about football history."

The bigger question on the show was whether Tomlin's TV run is a sabbatical or an exit. Rich invoked the format of his Friday segment to ask Heyward what's more likely: a return to coaching or a permanent move into media. Heyward said he believes Tomlin stays.

His reasoning was personal. Tomlin's daughter Harley, a second-team All-American gymnast as a sophomore, could be in the mix for the Olympic trials when the Games come to the United States. "His daughter could be in the trials and then he could be calling that," Heyward said. "That could cement it and be like one of those defining moments where it's like father to daughter watching her perform at the highest level. And then I don't think you get him to come back after that."

The predecessor comparison underscored the point. Bill Cowher walked away from Pittsburgh, took the studio chair, and never returned to a sideline. Heyward thinks Tomlin, like Cowher, will discover that not losing on Sundays has its own gravitational pull.