Jonnu Smith spent eight years in the NFL before he played a single snap for Mike Tomlin. He’d shuffled through four franchises, a stint under Bill Belichick, and enough locker rooms to know the difference between a coach who commands respect and one who just demands it. When Tomlin stood in front of that room at Smith’s first Pittsburgh Steelers team meeting, he had one reaction: “I ain’t even got words, man.”

He told that story on The Schultz Report, in conversation with NFL insider Jordan Schultz. And the fact that a first team meeting was the moment worth telling says plenty on its own, too.

“I heard a lot about him,” Smith said. “All great things obviously, and I’ve been around at that time for eight years going into my ninth, and I’m like, ‘Okay, well, let me see what’s the hype about this guy.’ When he stood in front of me, I was like, “Oh, all of the compliments don’t do it justice.”

But Smith didn’t stop there. He went on to describe exactly what set Coach Tomlin apart.

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“Mike T, man, every word that he said, you felt it,” Smith said. “He meant it. It was powerful. One of the best public speakers I ever been around. And I know we’re a private entity as far as that roster and the coach, it’s just us in that room. But just being able to command a room and be a leader of men, that’s big at this level because obviously we’re all men. We’re all alpha men. We all have achieved a ton of success far average than a normal person in this particular sport, and so it takes a lot of leadership capabilities to be able to step up and be a great role model for guys like us.”

Now, veterans like Jonnu Smith in the NFL locker rooms have been coached, motivated, and managed since they were teenagers. They know when someone means it and when someone is performing it. Tomlin didn’t read like a performance, and that’s the thing Smith couldn’t find the right words for.

Smith even brought Belichick into the conversation, not to rank them, but to make a point. Tomlin and Belichick have completely different operating styles, but both can get the most out of their rosters time and again. Belichick created a dynasty with the New England Patriots that remains unmatched. Mike Tomlin, meanwhile, went through 19 seasons in Pittsburgh without a losing record, with five different starting quarterbacks cycling through the building. The roster changed, but for Tomlin, the standard never did.

Moreover, after the 2025 season, it was Tomlin who decided to step away from the Steelers. Despite the rough campaign and the criticism he’d faced (including chants of “Fire Tomlin” from Steel City itself), the franchise had no plans to part ways with their coach.

And when it came to talking about coaches, Mike Tomlin wasn’t the only one who had left an impression on Jonnu Smith.

The Arthur Smith factor

Jonnu Smith and Arthur Smith have worked together across Tennessee, Atlanta, and Pittsburgh. That’s a decade, three franchises, and enough front-office turnover that the relationship surviving all of it isn’t incidental; it means something held.

“Art has been like my big brother,” Smith said. “That guy just always had my back since day one. Literally going all the way back to day one. Just a hell of a worker, too. If you know Arthur Smith and you know his story and you just see the way that he comes in and grinds… throughout the entire decade that I’ve been around this guy, he’s just worked his butt off like he can’t eat. Like he doesn’t have food on the table.”

When Smith says Arthur operates like someone who can’t afford to eat, he means it as the highest possible compliment. Arthur’s father, Frederick Smith, was the founder of FedEx, one of the most prominent shipping services in the world. Now, a coach from a privileged background who never let that background set his work rate isn’t a detail Smith needed to include. But he saw it firsthand and concluded that Tomlin and Arthur are “coaches that really deserve their flowers.”

Arthur Smith’s Atlanta tenure (2021 through 2023, three seasons, no playoffs) is the part of his resume that gets held against him. What that framing skips, though, is that he inherited a 4-12 roster in year one and went 7-10, which was actual progress.

Matt Ryan, the franchise quarterback he inherited, was traded the following offseason because the organization knew its roster wasn’t built to compete. The Falcons used their top-10 draft picks on offensive skill players: Kyle Pitts, fourth overall in 2021; Drake London, eighth in 2022; and Bijan Robinson, eighth in 2023. Arthur Smith was simply coaching a rebuild that the front office hadn’t finished putting together.

But Arthur Smith’s football journey has taken a different route since then. Parting ways with the Steelers after the 2025 season, Arthur has now become the offensive coordinator for Ohio State, a position he accepted in January 2026. And Jonnu Smith has set the bar for his old coach pretty high.

“I know he just went off to Ohio State and he’s going to do big things there,” Smith said. “I’m excited to see him win a couple of natties over there. So I’m grateful to tap into a guy like that, especially at this level.”

After the Steelers released Jonnu Smith in March 2026, he has every reason to simply move on. But he chose to talk about his Steelers coaches instead. Players who genuinely believe in a coach don’t need a platform to say so. Smith had one, and he used it anyway.