Mike Tomlin "releases hell!"

Mike Tomlin, head coach of the defending Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers, a couple weeks ago announced that he and his team will "release hell" ala Gladiator to finish out the season (after losing 3 straight). The typical sports guy and media absolutely ate this stuff up. The typical sports guy loves a coach with fire and passion. Tomlin's motivational declaration was "inspiring" and undoubteldy something that the team needs...allegedly. Most everyone believed/believes that it makes all the difference in professional sports. I'm NOT one of em.

If the Steelers win, it's because of his speech and not the simple fact that they were to play the absolutely horrible Oakland Raiders and Cleveland Browns both of whom are pure garbage. Sportynation, a motivational speech in professional sports is just down right silly. Professional athletes don't need extra motivation from a coach, and we are kidding ourselves thinking that a coaches SPEECH or declaration has a major impact on the outcome of a game. Btw, these full of rage and anger Steelers went on to lose 5 straight games! 5 straight!

Professional athletes, simply put, are professionals. That is, they are immensely skilled, talented, specialized, physically imposing specimens. Mike Tomlin saying that the team is going to play really well, doesn't really matter for players that are already trying to do well, particularly a team that just won the Championship the year before. Sportynation, let's not forget that the other team has a coach as well, a coach that can also profess to "release hell."




Generally speaking, a professional athlete has gotten to be a professional athlete for a reason. Once at the professional level, a motivational speech is just hot air coming from a coach's mouth. Just watch a basketball game and you'll see the players looking at almost everything except for the coach. Just do it. It's a pretty funny observation.

Sportynation, would you going to argue that Doug Collins' motivational techniques made Michael Jordan who he is? Mike Brown's motivational efforts influence LeBron? Stan Van's motivational techniques make Dwight Howard or J.J. Reddick play better?

Randy Moss doesn't need Bill Belicheck to motivate him, but rather he needs Tom Brady to throw the ball to him down field.



Adalius Thomas said it best, "Motivation is for Kindergartners. I'm not a Kindergartner," Said Thomas. "Sending somebody home, that's like 'He's expelled, come back and make good grades.' Get that [expletive] out of here. That's ridiculous. Motivation?" "I think everyone woke up to the snow yesterday. I didn't know it was going to snow. There was traffic. I can't run people over getting to work. I don't do that. I actually almost had a car accident. It is what it is. He did what he thought was best for him. That's what he did."

Look, motivation is the activation of goal oriented behavior. For the most part professional athletes are motivated to play well for various reasons...mainly and probably most importantly because they want to do well. It has a larger place in college sports, younger sports, and MAYBE other professions, but the most important form and type of motivation is intrinsic. Intrinsic motivation comes from rewards inherent to a task or activity itself...the desire to win, be the best or etc.

Let's not overthink things. Just a little while ago, Mike Tomlin kicked an onside kick up 2 points with a few minutes to play. That's not unleashing hell, that playing scared. Coach Tomlin's "hell" came in the form of Ben Roethlisberger passing for 503 yards, 3 Touchdowns one of which that came with 3 seconds left to play 1 inch from being out of bounds. Now, that some motivation for you...

This is my Minority Report.