Mike Tomlin spent 19 seasons building a football program in Pittsburgh so deeply personal that he can’t fully separate himself from it, even now that his job is to analyze it from a distance. In a wide-ranging sit-down with TODAY anchor Craig Melvin for “Glass Half Full,” the former Pittsburgh Steelers head coach and current NBC Sports NFL analyst was asked the one question every broadcaster with team ties eventually has to answer: can he actually call a Steelers game with a straight, neutral face?

“I don’t know that I am,” Tomlin said on the podcast. “I’m gonna be honest.”

It’s a pretty blunt answer from someone about to start analyzing the NFL from the other side, and this could become a problem for the former coach. This is because if an NFL analyst openly favors one team during a live broadcast, the backlash can come quickly.

Fans and supporters of the opposing team are likely to call out the analyst, with clips of the broadcast often making their way across social media. That can hurt the broadcaster’s credibility, especially when viewers expect national analysts to call the game fairly.

Networks such as CBS, FOX, ESPN, and NBC place a strong emphasis on balanced coverage during their biggest games. If an analyst repeatedly crosses that line, the consequences could go beyond online criticism. A network could take them off marquee matchups or assign them to less prominent games.

There could also be longer-term consequences. Repeated controversy can damage a broadcaster’s reputation and potentially affect future contracts, media opportunities, and other high-profile assignments. That’s why Tomlin needs to be careful while calling a Steelers game, but his emotional connection to the team is certainly understandable.

In the podcast, Melvin later brought up just how unusual Pittsburgh’s coaching history has been. In Tomlin’s lifetime, the Steelers have had only three head coaches: Chuck Noll, Bill Cowher, and Tomlin, so he knew exactly how unusual that kind of stability was. But when he explained his own connection to the Steelers, it became clear that his feelings had little to do with simply wanting his old team to win.

“Certainly, I respect the black and gold, but it’s beyond that,” Tomlin said. “It’s those people, it’s those people that I was a component of hand-selecting. I met them when they were 19, 20, 21 years old, and you think about those relationships. I met Cam Heyward when he was a young man. I went to Columbus, Ohio, and I drafted him, and I just watched the cycle of life, doing things that young guys do, getting married, transitioning, trading in sports cars for SUVs, car seats in the back.”

He wasn’t describing loyalty to a logo. He was talking about people he had a hand in bringing to Pittsburgh and then watched build lives beyond football. After 19 years, that history doesn’t vanish with the job.

Cam Heyward is a perfect example. Tomlin drafted him in the first round out of Ohio State in 2011, and Heyward spent his 15 NFL seasons in Pittsburgh without playing for another head coach.

The conversation moved on to other teams. When asked for his pick to win it all in 2026, Tomlin went with the Rams.

“The Rams get my preseason Lombardi,” Tomlin said, praising the team’s aggressive offseason moves and singling out newly acquired pass rusher Myles Garrett, whom the Rams landed in a trade with the Cleveland Browns. “They just went out and acquired the most dominant defensive player on the planet, who I know intimately because he was in my division. There’s a lot of people in the Northeast that are glad he’s out west.”

Tomlin also brought up the Rams’ pursuit of Aaron Donald when explaining why he liked what Los Angeles was doing. At the time of the interview, Donald was still “considering coming back.” By the time the interview actually aired, that speculation had already been settled: Donald officially ended his retirement and signed a one-year deal worth up to $20 million with incentives, joining Garrett on a Rams defense now being described as one of the most talented units in recent memory.

The contrast between how easily Tomlin analyzed the Rams and how openly he struggled with the Steelers question is exactly the tension networks have to manage when hiring recently retired coaches.

That may be the awkward part NBC has to navigate with Tomlin. He can break down the Steelers from a football standpoint, but his own words make clear that Pittsburgh is different for him. Tomlin may be able to analyze the Steelers, but asking him to pretend there is no personal connection there is a much harder sell.