Mike Tomlin is already looking ahead to the Pats, which means he's already lost

Andrew Rush/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin is really itching to see the Patriots at Heinz Field, so much so that three weeks ahead of that game, he's already talking about it.

During a pre-recorded interview with NBC's Tony Dungy, Tomlin said the following:

"I'm going to embrace the elephant in the room. [The game is] going to be fireworks," Tomlin told NBC's Tony Dungy in a sit-down interview that aired Sunday before the Steelers' 31-28 win over the Green Bay Packers. "And it's probably going to be Part 1. That's going to be a big game.

"But probably, if we're both doing what we're supposed to, the second one is really going to be a big game. Then what happens in the first is going to set up the second one, which is going to determine the location of the second one."

Tomlin clearly doesn't subscribe to the "one game at a time" theory and this obviously proves it. And while there isn't exactly anything wrong with what he said, it's not hard to see other AFC teams besides the Patriots using what he said as bulletin board material.

He continued he believes the Steelers should win the Super Bowl, but he might have forgotten that the Patriots are 8-2 against Pittsburgh in the Brady-Belichick era. When you start talking about a game that is three weeks away, to me, you've already lost. He isn't a good in-game coach and his reluctance to move away from playing zone coverage against the Pats is well documented. He's going to do something that will royally screw his team.

With that being said, however, if Pittsburgh isn't in the AFC Championship Game, then something went seriously wrong. The Patriots won't say it right now, but they'll be ready.

Follow me on Twitter - @JesseGaunce

For more of my articles, click here.