Mike Tomlin stepped down as Steelers head coach in January, but his feud with the Cleveland Browns refuses to die. Now it has spread to his family. Sunday brought a truce, of sorts, with Cleveland sitting at 4-2 after that win; Tomlin said on Football Night in America that he likes Todd Monken’s style.
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When host Maria Taylor asked if they were friends now, he answered with a smile, “I didn’t say we were friends; I just said I like his style.” Dino Tomlin, Mike’s son and a former Maryland and Boston College wide receiver, took a shot at Cleveland on social media.
“THEY WILL NEVER MEET FACE TO FACE CUZ CLEVELAND AIN’T GETTING A HOME SUNDAY NIGHT GAME😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 CAN YOU EVEN LAND A PLANE IN CLEVELAND,” Dino wrote on X.
Mike, now an NBC analyst, and Monken, the Browns’ first-year head coach, have traded jabs since Week 1. The newest round came after Cleveland rallied past the Baltimore Ravens 13-10 at home on Sunday, with the defense limiting Baltimore after its first two possessions.
Cleveland’s only scheduled primetime game this season was a Thursday night home date against the Steelers. Tomlin’s NBC work, meanwhile, centers on the Sunday Night Football window.
It all started in Cleveland’s 34-10 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars in Monken’s debut as head coach on September 13. Tomlin went on NBC’s Football Night in America and borrowed a line from one of his former receivers.
“In the words of my friend JuJu Smith-Schuster, the Browns is the Browns,” Tomlin said.
Smith-Schuster, then a Steelers receiver, made that phrase famous in 2020, before the Browns beat Tomlin’s Steelers in the wild-card round, and it has stuck because Cleveland has had just one winning season since.
Monken pushed back that Monday, saying one bad game didn’t make the Browns the Browns. The real response came after Cleveland beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 23-19 on the road on September 20, Monken’s first win as an NFL head coach. He ended his press conference with a mic drop: “Browns are gonna Browns. [Expletive] that. The guys took that to heart.”
Tomlin saw the clip on NBC that night and laughed it off, saying he was glad he could still motivate even though he is no longer coaching.
Cleveland kept the needling going as the Browns entered their October 1 home game against the Steelers having won four straight at home against them, and they made it five with a 27-24 win in Monken’s first meeting with Pittsburgh as Browns coach. The team’s X account then posted a Minecraft-themed graphic captioned “game over,” a nod to the Minecraft city Tomlin has spent more than a decade building.
Tomlin has also been upfront about where his loyalties lie. On New Heights on October 14, he said everybody already knows where his heart is and that he would not apologize for supporting the Steelers while working as an NBC analyst.
There is history here, too. Monken spent 2023 through 2025 as the Ravens’ offensive coordinator and faced Tomlin’s Steelers seven times. Pittsburgh swept Baltimore in 2023, but the Ravens beat the Steelers twice late in 2024, including a wild-card playoff win.
The Browns don’t have to settle this on social media, though. They visit the Titans on Sunday, then head to Pittsburgh on November 1 with a chance to sweep Tomlin’s old team. Cleveland has already beaten both the Steelers and the Ravens, and all three sit at 4-2 atop the AFC North. If Monken wins in Pittsburgh, the “Browns is the Browns” line gets harder to sell.