They Didn’t Know About Tommy Bo

From all I’ve heard, scouting reports can be pretty extensive in the NFL, especially in preparation for playoff opponents.

Shame on the Pittsburgh Steelers for not incorporating research taken from the pages of the Winston-Salem Journal into the defensive game plan for yesterday’s divisional matchup with the Jacksonville Jaguars.

I confess that being only a casual fan of pro football, I had lost track of Tommy Bohanon, the fullback/H-back at Wake from 2009 through 20012. I knew that he had caught on with the New York Jets as a seventh-round draft pick, but I had also heard that he got cut in September of 2016, after spending two seasons starting at fullback for the Jets and another mostly on the shelf with a broken collarbone.

So, much to my surprise I looked up yesterday and lo, there was Tommy Bo running all by himself through the Steelers’ secondary to catch a touchdown pass in the Jaguars’ 45-42 victory.

Having covered Tommy Bo for four seasons, and getting to know him well enough to like him, I was glad to see him doing himself proud. His doing so also sparked a recollection from his days at Wake.

I remembered vaguely writing about what a good receiver Bohanon proved to be and I remembered that, for all the weight he was able to throw around in Ethan Reeve’s training room, he had the best hands for a big guy I had ever seen.

All it took was a quick Google search – the same search the Steelers could have easily taken – to pull up the piece I wrote midway through his senior season. Bohanon’s statistics from the 2017 regular season show he caught only six passes for 43 yards, but clearly if the Steelers had looked a little deeper then Tommy Bo wouldn’t have been running all by his lonesome through their secondary en route to a critical fourth-quarter touchdown.

Bohanon, converted from fullback to H-back before his senior season, caught 23 passes for 208 yards as a senior. Five of those catches resulted in touchdowns. Another helped save the Deacons the embarrassment of losing the season opener to Liberty, when his 28-yard reception from Tanner Price in the fourth quarter set up a two-yard plunge from Deandre Martin that proved to be the winning touchdown.

Again, I’m not big expert of pro football, but I could see that Mike Tomlin and the Steelers’ coaching staff were off their game yesterday. Turns out, their problems began before kickoff.

With one quick Google search, they could have known what we know. Watch Tommy Bo out of the backfield.