The Pittsburgh Steelers spent about eight extra hours getting home from Las Vegas after an aircraft incident left them stranded on the tarmac in Kansas City until midday on Monday.
Head coach Mike Tomlin, addressing the media for the first time since returning to Pittsburgh on Tuesday, said that he doesn’t feel that the team suffered any real disadvantage by wasting a few hours of what was a scheduled players off day on a runway.
“(I did) some sleeping, some working,” he said. “Thankfully, because of technology, iPads and so forth, we can move on and after I got a nap, I did.”
Going forward, Tomlin doesn’t believe that the escapade will have any impact on his team going forward. The Steelers had already altered their schedule to make Monday an off day for the players, with film review scheduled for Wednesday morning ahead of a later-than-usual practice session.
“We’re going to make it a non-issue, to be honest with you,” Tomlin said.” It’s in our rear-view now. As I stand here today, it’s a non-factor. We’ve got so many days and hours to prepare. We have not lost any physical preparation opportuniy with our football team or classroom opportunity with our football team. It created a few hours yesterday and today that our staff has to absorb from a preparation standpoint, though as I mentioned, technology was a component of that. My desire is that as we move away from it, we talk less about it, because we don’t want it to be an excuse in any way or some galvanizing thing in any way.”
The Steelers have had disrupted schedules for two straight weeks surrounding their Week 2 game on Monday Night Football at any rate, so any disruption from the incident should be minor. Tomlin and the Steelers will face road travel again this Sunday, when they will visit the Houston Texans for their Week 4 matchup.
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