Mike Tomlin apparently has heard the phrase, "If you can't handle the heat, stay out of the kitchen."
And the Pittsburgh Steelers coach believes his team is ready to be thrown into the fire Sunday.
The Steelers open the regular season with a daunting road matchup against the New England Patriots at Gillette Stadium, where they haven't won since 2008. Yet several Pittsburgh veterans actually told reporters this week they enjoy the hostile environment in New England despite the team's track record there.
Seems surprising, no? Not to Tomlin, who captured his team's spirit with an interesting metaphor.
"That doesn't surprise me at all," Tomlin said Tuesday at his press conference, via Steelers.com. "Cooks like to be in the kitchen."
Basically, Tomlin's players want to be where the action is, even if the action hasn't favored them once over the last decade.
New England Patriots
"These guys are competitors," Tomlin added. "That's a competitor's environment up there (in New England), so that doesn't surprise me at all. I'd like to change the outcome of some of those, but the only one we can control is the one this weekend, so that's our focus."
The Steelers will have to contend with an especially hyped-up New England crowd following the Patriots' Super Bowl LIII banner ceremony. It's the third time Pittsburgh opened against the Pats following one of their Super Bowl victories (2002 and 2015), and they lost both times.
But Tomlin's group won the teams' most recent meeting in Pittsburgh last December, so the Patriots shouldn't overlook what looks like a hungry Steelers squad.
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