The pressures of winning can cloud a coach’s judgment. And with the playoffs about to get underway, some may feel even more compelled to doing whatever it takes to win. But Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin didn’t succumb to those pressures and will sit his leading tackler this weekend.
“He said he wouldn’t have let his son play and so I’m not playing either,” Steelers safety Ryan Clark told ESPN.
Clark has sickle cell trait, which can be problematic in the high altitude of Denver, where the Steelers will play Sunday’s AFC wild-card game against the Broncos. After becoming ill after a game there in 2007, Clark lost his spleen and gallbladder.
It’s not the first time Tomlin has held Clark out of a game in Denver, but his most recent restriction reiterates that the health of a player takes precedence to everything else.
Tomlin’s mentality should be implemented by all coaches when assessing a player’s health: If this was your son, would you let him play?
