Just recently during the 2024 pre-draft press conference with Mike Tomlin and Omar Khan, Tomlin admitted that he participates in some trickery while on the pro day trail, saying that he will talk to certain people he isn’t interested in knowing that the media is watching. It was a light-hearted comment, but he was more or less admitting that he plays the smoke-screen game a bit in those moments.
During the draft party hosted by Cameron Heyward, former Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert appeared as a guest on Heyward’s podcast and was asked about the art of laying smoke screens and leaking information to help achieve a desired outcome.