Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin told reporters going into last night’s game that he doesn’t view the third preseason game any differently than he did when there were four games instead of three. That means playing your starters for a longer period of time than in any other exhibition game, and more of them as well.
That is how they approached Saturday night’s blowout victory over the Atlanta Falcons, who took the opposite approach of resting their starters with the goal in mind of getting into the regular season as healthy as possible.
Asked after the game if he felt the need to play his starters because there was still more he wanted to see out of them to validate his beliefs, Tomlin’s answer was direct.