Mike Tomlin Minecraft Credit: NBC
By Drew Lerner on

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Mike Tomlin does not seem like a man destined to return to the sidelines.

The longtime Pittsburgh Steelers head coach and current NBC Sports NFL studio analyst has made abundantly clear that he’s enjoying the freedoms afforded to him with his new job. No longer is he up all night grinding tape, preparing for his next opponent, and doing the thousand other things required of NFL head coaches. Instead, he’s kicking back, going to family reunions for the first time in 30 years, staying up late to watch Hawaii games, and working on a Minecraft city he’s spent 12 years building.

And on Wednesday night, the viewing public will witness Tomlin’s Minecraft masterpiece for the first time. Tomlin revealed on social media that he’ll unveil his Minecraft city at 8 p.m. ET on Wednesday on his YouTube channel. The announcement already has over seven million views at the time of this writing, making this potentially some of the most highly anticipated Minecraft content in the game’s decades-long history.

Later on Wednesday, Tomlin revealed that tonight will simply be the first of several episodes dedicated to his Minecraft creation. “Can’t give it all away in one video,” the NBC analyst wrote.

Tomlin shocked the NFL and gaming worlds when he revealed to NBC’s Today host Craig Melvin that he was a devoted Minecraft player.

“I’m a big Minecrafter,” Tomlin told Melvin. “I started playing Minecraft, man, when my kids were young. I have a Minecraft city on creative, man, that I’ve been working on for like 12 years. When they come home, they’re like, ‘Hey, Dad, put your city up; let me see what’s up.’ My kids, they’ve taken it from PS3 to PS4 to PS5. They’re into preserving it because they know I don’t have the technical knowledge. But we’ve been talking recently about sharing it with the world. My oldest son is like, ‘Dad, you’ve got to share this with the world. People need to see this city that you’ve been working on for 12 years.'”

There’s probably no better way for Mike Tomlin to launch his YouTube channel than giving the people what they want. Just from his announcement post alone, the channel has surged to over 18,000 subscribers before a single video has been posted. It’s the type of thing you might do if you’re looking to build a career in media, and maybe not something that someone intent on getting back to the sidelines would care much about.

Regardless of whether or not this is any indication of what Tomlin’s future has in store, there’s clearly immense interest in what he’s been up to during his down time for the past decade. And we’ll all get to see the fruits of that labor tonight.

About Drew Lerner

Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.

View all posts by Drew Lerner