The Pittsburgh Steelers 27-24 loss Sunday to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers is one that won’t soon be forgotten and after the game head coach Mike Tomlin blamed it on his team being an undisciplined group
“We are too highly penalized,” said a heated Tomlin during his post game press conference. “Obviously we are not coaching it. We are allowing it to happen. So I take responsibility for that. We are not going to win close football games being penalized in the manner in which we’ve been penalized over the first month of the season.
“It’s unacceptable. It’s inexcusable. In a nutshell, that is the story of the outcome of the performance. There are some positive things and there are some negative things any time you play football. That is the case. But the defining factor in determining the outcome of that football game is that we were too highly penalized. It’s ridiculous.”
Ridiculous probably isn’t the perfect way to describe the Steelers being penalized 13 times for 125 yards Sunday in the loss to the Buccaneers as a few of them were of the pre and post snap variety.
“Some of the penalties are technical or orientation-like, facemask penalties and things of that nature,” explained Tomlin. “Our tackling technique needs to improve. But some of the pre-snap and post-snap and post-play penalties are just lacking discipline. We have to fix it. I have to fix it. And I will.”
The fact of the matter is that penalties have hurt the Steelers all season as they came into Sunday’s game having already being penalized 38 times for 262 yards. This 2014 version of the Steelers isn’t going to win a lot of football games unless Tomlin and the rest of the coaching staff get these penalties fixed in addition to several other problems that the team currently has.
