Le'Veon Bell is Less Than Thrilled Mike Tomlin Put So Much Time and Effort Into Minecraft. And the Data Backs Him Up.

By now the whole world has woken up to the startling display of Minecraft artistry put on by Mike Tomlin last night that Karim posted about:

I say "the world" with some confidence, since the ratings were most impressive:

That might not be everyone, but 4.1 million is a lot of someones. 

Now a cynical man might question why any adult would invest so much time, effort, and mental capacity on this pursuit. And you can call me cynical, since this is something my 3rd grader was going in 2009 with his friends. (Until that weird kid Johnny who was a little pain in the ass at the Airsoft war birthday party we held in the yard got mad about something and deleted most of what everyone else had built and every kid in the group ended up throwing fits about it.) But it's not for me to judge how another grown man spends his personal time. 

After all, Mike Tomlin is not, nor has he ever been, the coach of my football team. He was just the guy who went 4-10 against my football team, including 0-1 in the playoffs. So as far as I'm concerned, his Minecrafting was time well spent. 

But not all his former players feel so impressed by his handiwork:

This poor guy. No wonder he was willing to sit out an entire season rather than play another snap for the Steelers. Of course it was about money, too. But a man wants to know he's being led by someone as dedicated to success as he is. 

Bell went to the Pro Bowl three times in his first five seasons. He was All Pro two of those years. Three times he finished in the Top 3 in total yards from scrimmage. And once led in rushing attempts. That's the very definition of toughness, effort and determination. 

Now that he's been out of the league for five years, he finds out that while he was in the weight room getting stronger, or in the trainer's room, getting treatment on the host of injuries a bellcow running back like him has to fight through, his head coach was designing the layout of his rooftop pool and deciding what style of wainscoting should go in his sunken living room. (I'm just throwing out architectural terms; I don't know if these things are actually in Minecraft.) Instead of investing that time trying to work on blocking schemes to give Bell more room to run or disguise blitzes to stop Tom Brady, he was playing children's games. 

You wonder if Bell sensed something was off about Tomlin's approach to time management. Even though it sounds like he had no idea this was going on behind that closed office door, he must have known something was up. The record sort of speaks for itself:

Yes, this explains a lot. Tomlin's failures. And also how things go so bad for Bell in Pittsburgh,  that he went to the Jets. Desperate times call for desperate measures, indeed.