After a decade-and-a-half of battles in the AFC North division, Mike Tomlin is going out of his way to show respect to a retiring adversary.
Longtime Baltimore Ravens punter Sam Koch announced on Thursday that he was retiring from the NFL after a productive 16-year career.
The Pittsburgh Steelers coach Tomlin, who held his post for 15 of Koch’s 16 career seasons, tweeted a nice message for Koch in response to the news.
“Sam Koch … much respect!” Tomlin wrote.
During their respective tenures, Tomlin’s Steelers won 18 head-to-head matchups in the regular season while Koch’s Ravens won 15. The two teams also won one Super Bowl each over that span and met a total of three times in the playoffs, with Pittsburgh winning two of those games.
Of course, the Steelers have their own major retirement to process this offseason with Ben Roethlisberger hanging up his cleats after 18 seasons with the team. We already have an idea of how Pittsburgh may fill that void.
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