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Mike Tomlin Singled Out Offensive Line In Team Film Session, Kendrick Green Says

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It was a rather dreadful performance Saturday night on the road against the Jacksonville Jaguars for the Pittsburgh Steelers’ offensive line. In total, the Steelers ran for just 14 yards on 10 carries and had quarterbacks Mitch Trubisky, Kenny Pickett and Mason Rudolph under duress throughout the night.

Though the Steelers did come back to win thanks to a go-ahead touchdown drive from Rudolph in the two-minute drill, the offensive line remains a major concern under first-year offensive line coach Pat Meyer. Guys like free agent signee James Daniels, left tackle Dan Moore Jr., and left guard Kendrick Green are three guys that continue to struggle at an alarming rate and had quite the performances to forget Saturday night on the road.

Green, who played well into the fourth quarter while rotating with guard Kevin Dotson at the position, spoke to the media from the locker room on the South Side at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex Monday prior to practice and revealed that head coach Mike Tomlin put the offensive line up on the big screen during the team film session Monday, publicly critiquing the poor play of the unit, including Green specifically, according to video shot from inside the locker room by 93.7 The Fan’s Josh Rowntree.

“Coach T [Tomlin] had us up on the board, and me specifically, a lot during the team meeting,” Green said to reporters Monday, according to video from Rowntree. “That doesn’t feel good at all.”

No, it probably doesn’t feel good to be negatively singled out in a team setting, especially coming off of a downright dreadful performance from start to finish. Heading into the preseason matchup with the Jaguars, Green had a chance to really create some distance from Dotson in the battle for the starting job at left tackle due to his availability overall, but much like he played in his rookie season, Green struggled from the start of the game and never quite got his feet underneath him.
The transition to new OL coach Pat Meyer remains a work in progress. There’s a lot of moving parts within the trenches, some new techniques and some additional calls and ways to handle blitzes, stunts, twists and more. But so far, the work in progress has looked very, very rough.
Hopefully being singled out in front of the team in a negative way gives Green the fuel needed to light a fire and get things turned around in a hurry up front. There’s only one way to go from here for Green and the rest of the offensive line, and that’s up.
The way Tomlin handled the critique of the offensive line — and Green specifically — isn’t at all a surprise. He’s going to be exceptionally transparent and will tell you how it is, whether that’s what you want to hear or not. He’s going to be up front and honest — brutally honest at times — which has helped him maintain credibility and control of the locker room each and every year in the Steel City.
Green got to experience that the hard way.

“He’s not cussing you out,” Green added, according to Rowntree for 93.7 The Fan. “He’s like, this is what you are. This is what you put on film. And it’s fair. The natural reaction, the comfortable position, is that you want to get in the fetus position. Like, ‘Ah, don’t look at me.’ But you’ve got to own it. You put it on film. It’s more than the people in our room watching it. There’s 31 other teams watching, as well. They’re going to try to hone in on the same thing.”

Credit to Green for not running from the harsh criticism internally and revealing it to the media. He knows he played very poorly on Saturday and needs to improve in a hurry, not only for his time with the Steelers, but for his NFL future in general. So far, what he’s put on film doesn’t quite show an NFL lineman. Good news is he has some time to put things together and improve. The ship hasn’t left the harbor entirely on the 2021 third-round pick just yet.

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