For the Pittsburgh Steelers, the feeling inside the locker room is much different than the tone outside of it. Despite a loss to the Baltimore Ravens, at home no less, where they were thoroughly outplayed in every area, players are trying to keep a positive attitude moving forward. And far from hitting that panic button.
“I wouldn’t say that we’re panicking or anything,” Terrell Edmunds said post-game, via the team website. “We definitely have our mind on our goal. And tour goal is to win every game. So we have to come out next week with the mentality that we’re going to win. We got to go through practice with it.”
Edmunds will need that positive attitude coming off the worst game of his young career.
The Steelers will take on an Atlanta Falcons team coming off a last-second shootout loss to the Cincinnati Bengals, making Pittsburgh’s defeat to Baltimore all the more difficult of a pill to swallow. The AFC North has certainly become more competitive that anticipated and right now, the Steelers are just hanging on.
Still, players were adamant the issues are correctable.
“We got to correct ourselves more than anything,” Ramon Foster told reporters at his locker. “It’s not a sense of just getting beat. We’re doing some stuff to beat ourselves…we’ll be fine. They came in and just executed more than we did.”
Despite managing to tie the game at the half, the offense came out flat the rest of the way. Pittsburgh posted just 47 yards of 2nd half offense and was shut out in the final two quarters for the second straight week.
“Game four, just gotta stay positive and keep moving forward,” JuJu Smith-Schuster said.
Joe Haden had a similar message.
“We still got a long way to go. A whole lot of improving to do. Myself included.”
After Atlanta, the Steelers will finish out most of their AFC North games over the next three weeks, with a bye mixed in there. They travel to Cincinnati two weeks from now, followed by the week off, and then back-to-back matchups against Cleveland and Baltimore.
If the Steelers don’t turn things around then, it could be a ugly rest of the season. More than it already has, I mean.
