Terry Bradshaw says he regrets calling Mike Tomlin ‘cheerleader’

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Terry Bradshaw acknowledged Wednesday that “cheerleader” probably wasn’t the best choice of words when he said last month that Steelers head caoch Mike Tomlin wasn’t a “great” coach.

At a Fox press conference for Super Bowl LI on Wednesday, Bradshaw said he used the word “cheerleader” without really thinking, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

“I wish I hadn’t had said ‘cheerleader,'” Bradshaw said. “It was an instantaneous response. I referenced it to on the sideline the camera will catch him a lot of times and he’s gyrating so cheerleading was the first thing that came to my mind.”

Tomlin said that the “cheerleader” term falls “outside the bounds of critique or criticism. They probably fall more toward the area of disrespect and unprofessional.”

“Motivator would have been a better word,” Bradshaw said.

Bradshaw was asked if he’d be ready to call Tomlin a great coach if he won another Super Bowl.

“Why you’re all so geared up to get ‘great’ out of me?” Bradshaw said, laughing. “‘Great’ is so overstated. There’s only one great coach in the NFL, and that’s that coach up in New England. That’s a great coach.”

Since Fox is broadcasting Super Bowl LI, Bradshaw would be presenting the Super Bowl trophy. He said if it happens to be Tomlin with him on that stage, he’d use the word “great” only in a tongue-in-cheek manner.

If he doesn’t want to use that word sincerely, then Bradshaw better break out the thesaurus if the Steelers win in Kansas City on Sunday, just in case.

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