Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin wants the team’s fans to practice patience, as the clamor to see more of the 15-year veteran linebacker James Harrison on the field grows.

This comes after Tomlin opted to play Anthony Chickillo as T.J. Watt’s replacement in Week 1’s matchup against the Cleveland Browns when Watt exited the contest with a groin injury.

Harrison, meanwhile, was left on the sidelines, finishing the game unable to sweat it out on the field. The following week against the Minnesota Vikings, Chickillo was Tomlin’s choice as the starter instead of Watt with Harrison playing minimally, appearing in just a total of four snaps.

Speaking to reporters including Josh Alper of Pro Football Talk about his seldom use of Harrison, Tomlin bared that his decision to start Chickillo in the Vikings game was just his form of rewarding the third-year linebacker for a great job against Cleveland when Chickillo recorded two sacks.

“Bud missed some time in Week One, and Chickillo was able to start. Chickillo produced two sacks,” Tomlin said. “You respect those contributions. T.J. got hurt in Week Two, and we wanted to leave the hot hand in there, Chickillo being that hot hand.

As for Harrison, Tomlin appeared to be in no rush to give the starting role to the 39-year-old linebacker, who had said in the offseason that he has no problem being relegated to the “relief pitcher” role.

We appreciate James. We know what James is capable of. James will ready himself, and there will be a time in the season when we’ll call on his services, and he’ll deliver and deliver in a big way. Much like he did in the latter part of 2016. In the meanwhile, we’re going to continue to roll people and play, and play guys as we see fit and not do a real good job of maybe describing our mind-set, or outlining our intentions, because part of it is gamesmanship and part of it is it will define itself as we move forward.”