The Pittsburgh Steelers will play a Kansas City Chiefs team this coming Sunday that has lost five consecutive games and that’s concerning based on the history of the franchise since head coach Mike Tomlin took over in 2007. Tuesday, during his weekly press conference, Tomlin made it clear where his mindset for the Week 7 road game is currently at.
“Obviously, they’re a 1-5 football team, but not one that we’re going to underestimate,” said Tomlin. “First and foremost, we’re not in a position to underestimate anyone. We’re extremely fragile, we acknowledge that.
“We’re not looking for comfort, or looking to make an excuse, it’s just a state of where we are. We’re going to deal with that state and make necessary adjustments and put ourselves in a position to win and hopefully with a formula that highlights the assets of the guys that we do have.”
If you remember back to last season, four of the Steelers five loses came against teams that had a losing record at the time that they played them. Two of those losses to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and New York Jets were extremely embarrassing and especially when you consider that current Steelers backup quarterback Mike Vick was responsible for giving them one of those two losses.
The Steelers are indeed a very fragile team right now even though they have won two of their three games that they have played without injured starting quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. Even if Roethlisberger is somehow able to return this week against the Chiefs, history shows that he hasn’t played spectacular during his career in his first game back from an injury.
If backup Landry Jones winds up starting, however, he’ll be making his first career start against a Chiefs defense that features two perennial pass-rushers in the form of Justin Houston and Tamba Hali. On top of that, Alejandro Villanueva will also be making his first career-start at left tackle for the Steelers.
“We’re going to spend our time talking about how to put Villanueva in a position to perform and how to accentuate the talents of Landry Jones, or who’s going to step up for Stephon Tuitt, if he’s unavailable, or what we can do to ensure that Robert Golden takes another significant step in performance this week if Will Allen is unavailable,” said Tomlin. “That’s where we spend our time.”
