Steelers coach Ravens Eddie Faulkner Derrick Henry
Steelers coach Ravens Eddie Faulkner Derrick Henry
Former Steelers RB coach Eddie Faulkner joined the Ravens after Mike Tomlin resigned as head coach. It was Tomlin who told him he got the job. Faulkner quickly fell under Tomlin’s wing after joining the coaching staff in 2019, a year after the Steelers drafted one of his NC State running backs in Jaylen Samuels.
Faulkner worked under Tomlin for eight seasons, even serving as interim co-offensive coordinator during the 2023 season after the team fired Matt Canada. While he reverted back to his former role a year later, he remained a trusted ear for his head coach.
Turns out, Mike Tomlin and Jesse Minter have a relationship that goes way back, which perhaps Faulkner didn’t realize. More specifically, Tomlin coached under Minter’s father, Rick, at the University of Cincinnati in 1999-2000.
“He took interest in me, I took interest in him, and we’ve had a good relationship ever since”, Jesse Minter recalled a few years back. And so it was that Faulkner’s former head coach delivered the news before his new head coach could.
“Mike and Jesse have a relationship. Long story short, I get out of my interview”, Eddie Faulkner told Ravens media recently, “and I get a call from Mike T prior to hearing from Jesse. He’s like, ‘Hey man, you got the job’. I’m like, ‘I hadn’t even heard that yet.’ So that part of it was fun, and then very quickly after that, Jesse reached out and told me”.
RBs Coach Eddie Faulkner on finding out he got his Ravens job from Mike Tomlin 😂 pic.twitter.com/jOdWcgpjG1
The Steelers, with Faulkner as their RB coach, drafted Najee Harris, a rookie Pro Bowler with four consecutive 1,000-yard seasons. Perhaps more notably, he helped develop Jaylen Warren, who has been clawing his way to a larger role in recent years. Last season, former Steelers RB Kenneth Gainwell won the team’s MVP Award.
Arguably—by Faulkner—he now has a more talented backfield with the Ravens than he ever did with the Steelers under Tomlin. And when your lead runner is Derrick Henry, well, that’s hard to argue against. But Pittsburgh has an intriguing backfield this year, signing Rico Dowdle to pair with Warren. Depth is something of a puzzle, with Kaleb Johnson and Eli Heidenreich as interesting options.
After Tomlin resigned, the Steelers gave all of the assistant coaches free rein to seek employment elsewhere. Every coach of note managed to do that, Eddie Faulkner among the first to land on his feet with the Ravens. Only two coaches from Tomlin’s staff remain, both of whom have previous ties to new HC Mike McCarthy: QB coach Tom Arth and ILB coach Scott McCurley. The former played for McCarthy in Green Bay, while the latter worked for him in Dallas.
Mike Tomlin is now in the broadcast booth, sharing his perspective after decades as an NFL coach. It’ll be interesting to hear what he has to say about his former coaches, especially ones like Eddie Faulkner, to whom he was something of a mentor.