Week 7: Mike Tomlin Press Conference

*Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin sounds off on the Minnesota Vikings, Brett Favre, Adrian Peterson, Jeff Reed, Willie Parker, Troy Polamalu & more

Mike Tomlin on the Minnesota Vikings

"Exciting week for us. We begin preparation for the Minnesota Vikings, which to this point have proven that they’re a world championship caliber outfit. They’re an undefeated team. They’re rock-solid on all levels. They’re well-coached."

"Offensively, this guy that plays running back for them is arguably the best football player in the world right now in Adrian Peterson, and the guy under center is a legendary quarterback in Brett Favre. They’ve got top-quality linemen such as Bryant McKinnie and Steve Hutchinson on the left side, big powerful people who plow open holes for their feature runner and protect their quarterback."

"They have big play capable receivers in (Bernard) Berrian and of course Sydney Rice is an emerging star in this league who had an enormous day this past weekend. He’s a guy on the come and a fast-riser for them. Their rookie Percy Harvin is not playing like one, similar to our rookie. He’s making splash plays and time and time again is proving the stage isn’t too big for him."

"Rock-solid West Coast offense, tried and tested. Members of their coaching staff are well-schooled in their offense, as is their quarterback and everyone else. They’ve got great continuity in regards to that. They don’t beat themselves. They take care of the football. They’re tops in the league in turnover ratio. They control the clock with their run game. They don’t make mistakes, and that’s probably one of the reasons they’re a 6-0 football team."

"Their quarterback is operating very efficiently at this point. He has a rating of around 110. When you’ve got a quality runner like Adrian Peterson and a quarterback like Brett Favre who’s not making mistakes, you’ve got to play close to perfect to beat them. We’re coming to grips with what that’s about as we prepare."

"Defensively, they’re a 4-3 team. It starts up front with Kevin and Pat Williams, disruptive interior forces that they are. Those two guys go to the Pro Bowl every year. They trample the run on the way to the pass. Kevin has distinguished himself not only as a run stuffer but as an interior rush man. I think he has four sacks on the season. Jared Allen’s on the outside. He’s one of the top sack men in the league. He provides a great deal of energy and enthusiasm to them."

" To boot, the left end, Ray Edwards, is a top quality player in his own right and probably doesn’t get the recognition he deserves playing with that group. E.J. Henderson is the man in the middle, one of the best linebackers, in my opinion, in the NFC. In the secondary they’ve got the likes of Antoine Winfield along with Cedric Griffin."

"They play a very physical brand of football. They launch a lot of things out of their cover-2 shell from a schematic standpoint, and within that scheme corners have got to be football players first. These guys fit the bill in regards to that. They’re violent people. They defend the flats. They play man to man. They come up and participate fully in the running game. Very good football team, needless to say."

Tomlin on the Steelers injury situation

"In regards to a couple injury issues, Andre Frazier, who missed last week’s game with a quad contusion, we anticipate he’ll be able to go this week but may be limited early in the week. Rashard Mendenhall has a knee bruise. It shouldn’t affect his play whatsoever. It may limit him tomorrow."

"All the other injuries are minor. Everyone who got hurt in that game last week was able to come back and finish the game (except Travis Kirschke), so we’re good from that standpoint because we’ll need all the able bodies that we can get."

Tomlin on Troy Polamalu

"Also of note, Troy Polamalu seems to be progressing relatively well in his march back to full participation. We may limit him in the early portion of this week, but we just want to keep that arrow pointing up in his participation and specifically the quality of that. I like where we are in terms of getting him started, getting him back in the fold, and getting out there and making plays for us. Want to keep that arrow moving up and may exercise caution here early in the week in terms of participation and make sure he’s ready to go for us on Sunday."

Q & A

Question: In regards to Jeff Reed, do you have a policy when things like this come up? Or do you do it on a case-by-case basis? And, second, was there any value in handling Santonio Holmes last year when it comes to this?

Answer from Tomlin: "I have a set policy or approach to how I handle it. First thing we need to do is information gathering. That’s something that as an organization we’ve done. We’ve talked to all of the parties involved – myself, Kevin Colbert and Art Rooney – and then we evaluate the situation and handle it internally, always with the premise that we want to do what’s right and do what’s in the best interest of our football team."

"In reference to Santonio’s situation last year, we handled it in a very similar manner, and that is our approach. We want to minimize distractions, we want to gather information and deal with it internally. Probably the only difference in the situations is the time of the week in which it occurred. Santonio’s incident occurred on a Thursday evening".

" It basically became something we had to deal with on a Friday leading up to a football game. We chose to deactivate him to minimize the distraction and continue preparation for the football game, and really dealt with his situation the following Monday. If you remember, he missed that game for that reason. He was deactivated. His deactivation was not punitive. It was done to minimize the distraction and to prepare for a football game that was closing in on 48 hours away from the incident."

"We’re handling this in a similar manner. It’s just that it happened on a Sunday and we’re afforded the opportunity of dealing with it and address it on a Monday or Tuesday, similar to how we did the Santonio thing, which we addressed after that weekend’s game."

Question: Is there a degree of frustration on your part in having to deal with this matter?