Michael John Tomczak (born October 23, 1962) is a former

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

player. Tomczak played

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

for several

NFL The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major ...

teams from 1985 through 1999, including the

Chicago Bears The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago. The Bears compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) North division. The Bears have won nine NF ...

, the

Green Bay Packers The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. It ...

, the

Cleveland Browns The Cleveland Browns are a professional American football team based in Cleveland. Named after original coach and co-founder Paul Brown, they compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference ( ...

, and the

Pittsburgh Steelers The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional American football team based in Pittsburgh. The Steelers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) North division. Founded in , the Steel ...

. He was the

offensive coordinator An offensive coordinator is a member of the coaching staff of an American football or Canadian football team who is in charge of the team's offense. Generally, along with the defensive coordinator and the special teams coordinator, this coach re ...

for the

Pittsburgh Power The Pittsburgh Power were a professional arena football team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The team belonged to the East Division of the American Conference (AC) in the Arena Football League (AFL). Founded in 2011, the Power ...

of the

Arena Football League The Arena Football League (AFL) was a professional arena football league in the United States. It was founded in 1986, but played its first official games in the 1987 season, making it the third longest-running professional football league in ...

until 2014 when they ceased operations.

Early life, family and education

Tomczak is of Polish descent. He attended Thornton Fractional North in

Calumet City, Illinois Calumet City ( ) is a city in Cook County, Illinois, Cook County, Illinois, United States. The population was 36,033 at the 2020 census, a decline of 2.7% from 37,042 in 2010. The ZIP code is 60409. Etymology The word ''Calumet'' is the Miꞌkmaq ...

. He attended college at

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

and played football for its football team, the Buckeyes.

Professional football

Chicago Bears

Tomczak went undrafted out of college and signed as an original free agent with the Chicago Bears. He started no games his first year but did earn a

Super Bowl The Super Bowl is the annual final playoff game of the National Football League (NFL) to determine the league champion. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966, replacing the NFL Championship Game. Since 2022, the game ...

ring, and saw playing time in

Super Bowl XX Super Bowl XX was an American football game between the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Chicago Bears and the American Football Conference (AFC) champion New England Patriots to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for ...

on January 26, 1986, during the fourth quarter of the Bears' 46–10 win over the

New England Patriots The New England Patriots are a professional American football team based in the Greater Boston area. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East divisio ...

on the kickoff unit, where he was penalized for a facemask penalty. He was a member of the "Shuffling Crew" in the Bears' video for ''

The Super Bowl Shuffle "The Super Bowl Shuffle" is a song performed by the Chicago Bears football team (credited as the Chicago Bears Shufflin' Crew) in . It was released in December 1985 on Chicago-based Red Label Records and distributed through Capitol Records two mo ...

'', mimicking playing guitar. He played for the Bears until 1990 starting 31 games and throwing for 31

touchdown A touchdown (abbreviated as TD) is a scoring play in gridiron football. Whether running, passing, returning a kickoff or punt, or recovering a turnover, a team scores a touchdown by advancing the ball into the opponent's end zone. In Ameri ...

s and 47

interception In ball-playing competitive team sports, an interception or pick is a move by a player involving a pass of the ball—whether by foot or hand, depending on the rules of the sport—in which the ball is intended for a player of the same team b ...

Green Bay Packers

Tomczak was signed by the Green Bay Packers after the 1990 season and started seven games, throwing 11 touchdown passes, 128 completions and 9 interceptions. He was cut by the Packers on Monday, August 31, 1992 after not participating in training camp activities or appearing in the entire preseason due to a lengthy contract holdout.

Pittsburgh Steelers

After spending a year with the Green Bay Packers and another with the Cleveland Browns, he signed with the Pittsburgh Steelers and spent seven seasons with the team, starting for much of the 1996 season and helping to guide the team into the playoffs. He started occasionally throughout his last three seasons with the Steelers, spelling

Kordell Stewart Kordell Stewart (born October 16, 1972) is a former American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 11 seasons, primarily with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Nicknamed "Slash", he played college football at Colorad ...

for long stretches of the year in 1999. After his contract with Pittsburgh was not renewed, he signed with the

Detroit Lions The Detroit Lions are a professional American football team based in Detroit. The Lions compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) North Division. The team play their home games at Ford ...

in 2000 but suffered a broken right

tibia The tibia (; ), also known as the shinbone or shankbone, is the larger, stronger, and anterior (frontal) of the two bones in the leg below the knee in vertebrates (the other being the fibula, behind and to the outside of the tibia); it connects ...

in an exhibition game against the

Oakland Raiders The Oakland Raiders were a professional American football team that played in Oakland from its founding in 1960 to 1981 and again from 1995 to 2019 before relocating to the Las Vegas metropolitan area where they now play as the Las Vegas Raide ...

. After being forced to sit out the entire season, he retired from football, the last remaining active player from the 1985 Bears team. When asked about this, he replied, "Well, I had my run and I think it's time for new rookies to take my place on this team." For his career, Tomczak had 73 starts, completed 55.3% of his passes for 88 touchdowns and 106 interceptions.

Career highlights

Among Tomczak's NFL career highlights, he won his first 10 starts at quarterback, all with Chicago, which set an NFL Record (breaking the mark set by former Pittsburgh Steeler

Mike Kruczek Michael Francis Kruczek (born March 15, 1953) is an American football coach and former quarterback. He is currently the head varsity coach for Trinity Preparatory School of Florida. Playing career Kruczek earned All-America in 1975 as a quarter ...

). The mark was eventually topped by former Steeler QB

Ben Roethlisberger Benjamin Todd Roethlisberger Sr. (; born March 2, 1982), nicknamed "Big Ben", is an American former football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 18 seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers. He played college footba ...

. In 1988, Tomczak was the starting QB for Chicago in the infamous " Fog Bowl" playoff game against the

Philadelphia Eagles The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia. The Eagles compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. The team plays ...

, guiding the Bears to a 20-12 victory that put them in the

NFC NFC may refer to: Psychology * Need for cognition, in psychology * Need for closure, social psychological term Sports * NFC Championship Game, the National Football Conference Championship Game * NCAA Football Championship (Philippines) * Nati ...

Championship Game. Tomczak started the last 15 games of the regular season, plus two playoff games, for Pittsburgh in 1996. The Steelers won 11 of those games, losing in the playoffs to eventual AFC champions, the New England Patriots. In his final regular season game, Pittsburgh lost a shoot-out against the

Tennessee Titans The Tennessee Titans are a professional American football team based in Nashville, Tennessee. The Titans compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) South division, and play their h ...

47-36, the highest scoring game in the history of

Three Rivers Stadium Three Rivers Stadium was a multi-purpose stadium located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1970 to 2000. It was home to the Pittsburgh Pirates of Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League (NFL). Built ...

. Tomczak passed for 309 yards and 2 touchdowns in his final game.

NFL career statistics

Post NFL career

Tomczak worked as a sports announcer in Pittsburgh, as well as a

color commentator A color commentator or expert commentator is a sports commentator who assists the main (play-by-play) commentator, typically by filling in when play is not in progress. The phrase "colour commentator" is primarily used in Canadian English and t ...

for

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

college football games, before becoming a sports management agent. In 2001, he appeared on the sitcom ''

Yes, Dear ''Yes, Dear'' is an American television sitcom created by Alan Kirschenbaum and Gregory Garcia, that aired on CBS from October 2, 2000, to February 15, 2006, with the total of six seasons and 122 episodes. It starred Anthony Clark, Jean Louis ...

'' as himself. He is a director at SMG Sports Management and has continued to work as a sports commentator. Tomczak was the

for the Pittsburgh Power of the Arena Football League from 2010-2014. Tomczak has served as a volunteer coach, with

Division I-AA The NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), formerly known as Division I-AA, is the second-highest level of college football in the United States, after the Football Bowl Subdivision. Sponsored by the National Collegiate Athletic ...

Youngstown State University Youngstown State University (YSU or Youngstown State) is a public university in Youngstown, Ohio. It was founded in 1908 and is the easternmost member of the University System of Ohio. The university is composed of six undergraduate colleges an ...

, since 2017.

Legal trouble

In late April 2010 he was arrested and charged with two counts of simple assault for "lunging at his wife, grabbing her and stepping on her foot." The charges were dropped on May 4, 2010.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Tomczak, Mike 1962 births Living people American football quarterbacks Chicago Bears players Cleveland Browns players College football announcers Detroit Lions players Green Bay Packers players Ohio Dominican Panthers football coaches Ohio State Buckeyes football players Pittsburgh Steelers players People from Calumet City, Illinois Sportspeople from the Chicago metropolitan area Players of American football from Illinois American people of Polish descent Ed Block Courage Award recipients