Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster continued to take the blame on Monday for the team’s costly Sunday road loss to the New Orleans Saints, saying on Twitter that he “let everyone down” after a late fourth-quarter fumble.
After the Saints had scored the go-ahead touchdown for a 31-28 lead with 1:25 remaining in the fourth quarter, the Steelers were seemingly driving into field-goal range when Smith-Schuster fumbled at the New Orleans 34-yard-line after catching a short pass from quarterback Ben Roethlisberger after first gaining 8 yards.
“It’s tough to go out like that,” Smith-Schuster said after the game. “I got tackled, I fumbled, game over. I was just trying to get down. They made a good play.”
During his Monday morning interview on 93.7 The Fan, Roethlisberger shared what he had told a down Smith-Schuster in the team’s locker room after the game was over.
“I told him that if you play this game long enough, JuJu, which I think he will, because I think he’s special talent and special player, I said, ‘You’re going to have many, many more opportunities to go win games and they’ll probably be a few where things don’t go your way,'” said Roethlisberger. “I said, ‘What’s going to happen though is you can make one or two decisions moving forward. You can learn from this, get better, put it behind you and learn from it, or you can dwell on it forever and just never be the same receiver.’ And I shared some other things with him, but just telling him that I’m so proud of him and that really, he’s one of the main reasons we even had chance to win that game and win so many games this year.”
Despite what Roethlisberger told Smith-Schuster that after the game, it appears as though the young wide receiver has still yet to get over his costly fumble judging by his Monday morning tweet. Veteran cornerback Joe Haden even took to Twitter to respond to Smith-Schuster’s tweet to let him know that the loss wasn’t entirely on him.
While it’s noble for Smith-Schuster to take to Twitter and attempt to take full credit for Sunday’s loss, those action really aren’t warranted. After all, the Steelers had several opportunities to win that game prior to his fumble and they didn’t.
Smith-Schuster might have himself a blue Christmas on Tuesday but he better snap out of it and put that Saints game behind him once and for all by Wednesday when the Steelers begin preparations to play the Cincinnati Bengals next Sunday at home. A Steelers win combined with the Baltimore Ravens losing to the Cleveland Browns on Sunday would result in Pittsburgh winning the AFC North and hosting a Wild Card game.
