Y’all really should watch the video if you havent! I think even if you have no interest in Minecraft, or football (as others have mentioned Tomlin was a long tenured NFL coach until this year). There’s something so refreshingly earnest, and joyful about watching someone share something they’ve poured so much time and themselves into.
I love how it's a city with almost solarpunk theming—present day, but with buildings nestled in greenery in an almost idyllic setting. Then he moves into one of the apartment blocks and WHAM—there's disturbing imagery on the television screens. This is the kind of creativity that comes from sitting with a piece as you make it and thinking it through bit by bit.
He's one of the longest consecutively tenured by a single team. There are some coaches who have coached longer, but not consecutively, or not for the same team, but Tomlin was the head coach for the Steelers for 19 years. And in those 19 years, he never had a losing season.
He had one more year on his current contract when he decided to retire.
He was mostly known for being able to wrangle the more "unique" personalities of the NFL and for his answers during press conferences. Giving us such gems as "The standard is the standard", "and things of that nature", "We're still squirreling those nuts", "We do not live in our fears", etc.
For those who don't know Mike Tomlin is the former head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, the second longest tenured coach in the league, and never had a losing season before resigning his job last year.
The idea of any NFL head coach having time to do this, especially a winning one, is absurd.
It's absurd, but he partly reflects on that himself: "But more than anything, it was therapeutic for me. Some mindless entertainment. I'm not a big TV watcher. It allowed me to detach from the realities and the pressures of life."
Tomlin is a poster child of how hard it is to drop early impressions of someone. He came in as a hot shot, but after last season he was going on 8 years since a single playoff victory.
i’d lose myself in a creative world if i lead a team that demands excellence without a franchise quarterback. imagine how many meetings this man endured in lieu of a capable qb.
but it is cool how mike’s minecraft story follows a familiar arc for anyone raising kids after 2009, and learning about his interests in architecture and urbanism.
Best part is that he did this all with a controller + pretty slow sensitivity settings. Aka this probably took 2X as long as someone on a PC doing the same thing
It's definitely not for everyone. I'd equate the feeling to knitting, where progress is mostly slow and deliberate and the meditativeness is by design.
It's also more fun on a server with friends, where it can be more about hanging out and doing something together, rather than a solo creative exercise.
"I started playing Minecraft, man, when my kids were young,” Tomlin said. “I have a Minecraft city in creative that I’ve been working on for like 12 years."
Yeah, it is fun exploring dungeons with my kids. But it seems he clicked the city together? That part always bothered me with minecraft to build anything big, or repetitive.
Well, I love automation, and AI is awesome for that. So now my kids can add details to castles or railwails build by algorithm (But using commands is a big temptation to destroy game balance in survival mode).
This is definitely a personal preference, I think I'd be bored just tweaking something generated by an AI or anyone else, to me a long term construction of something from the ground up sounds much more fun.
I've built a couple replicas of IRL buildings in survival over the years, for an hour or two after work, and found it very relaxing. It did take a lot of repetitive clicking, but the result was (almost) always worth it. And all the things like planning, finding the right place on the map and gathering the materials building materials made it feel like an actual construction, which I enjoyed.
It makes sense that someone like an NFL head coach would be good at this... the sheer amount of detail in the playbooks (we're talking 500-1000 plays) is nauseating and changes significantly from year to year as NFL play styles evolve.
Could you please stop posting low-quality comments to HN, such as shallow dismissals, snark, putdowns, etc.? Your account has unfortunately been doing it repeatedly, and we're trying for something else here.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=_h_pQ1-5iQg
Interesting choice for his favorite rooftop 12m in!
He had one more year on his current contract when he decided to retire.
He was mostly known for being able to wrangle the more "unique" personalities of the NFL and for his answers during press conferences. Giving us such gems as "The standard is the standard", "and things of that nature", "We're still squirreling those nuts", "We do not live in our fears", etc.
https://x.com/LeVeonBell/status/2105491655142867280
For those without X, "we were tryna win super bowls and coach T was on minecraft building cities "
The idea of any NFL head coach having time to do this, especially a winning one, is absurd.
Overall > 0.5 win rate each year: https://www.pro-football-reference.com/coaches/TomlMi0.htm
But after 2016, playoffs? Not so much.
Before Minecraft city (2007–2013): 5–3 in the playoffs — 62.5% win rate
After starting the city (2014–2025): 3–9 in the playoffs — 25.0% win rate
but it is cool how mike’s minecraft story follows a familiar arc for anyone raising kids after 2009, and learning about his interests in architecture and urbanism.
It's also more fun on a server with friends, where it can be more about hanging out and doing something together, rather than a solo creative exercise.
Yeah, it is fun exploring dungeons with my kids. But it seems he clicked the city together? That part always bothered me with minecraft to build anything big, or repetitive.
Well, I love automation, and AI is awesome for that. So now my kids can add details to castles or railwails build by algorithm (But using commands is a big temptation to destroy game balance in survival mode).
I've built a couple replicas of IRL buildings in survival over the years, for an hour or two after work, and found it very relaxing. It did take a lot of repetitive clicking, but the result was (almost) always worth it. And all the things like planning, finding the right place on the map and gathering the materials building materials made it feel like an actual construction, which I enjoyed.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.