The Pittsburgh Steelers suffered a tough loss last night to the Cleveland Browns, losing 29-17 on the road. While the team isn’t happy with where they sit right now with a losing record three games into the 2022 season, TE Zach Gentry remains optimistic that this team can get things turned around.
“It’s always tough coming off a loss,” Gentry said to the media Friday morning in the locker room on video from Chris Adamski’s Twitter page. “Starting 1-2 is not where we want to be, especially because it feels like a lot of things are going our way the last couple of games and we let some stuff that was in our control slip away a little bit. But that’s the beauty of the NFL seasons. We still have 14 more of these things, so we’ll be in the film room trying to get it corrected.”
Gentry is right by saying that the Steelers have had several things go their way in the last two games before watching victory slip through their fingertips. Pittsburgh scored in the second half and got the ball back two different times with the chance to put together a game-winning drive against the Patriots, but had their offense stall out in the fourth quarter, going three-and-out in two-consecutive possessions. Last night, Pittsburgh had a one-point lead with the ball right before halftime but couldn’t get points before intermission and failed to get anything going in the second half after back-to-back 75-yard TD drives in the second quarter.
It’s frustrating for an offense that has now shown moments of what they can be as they moved the ball effectively in the no-huddle offense but couldn’t sustain any drives down the stretch when the team needed it the most. The blame deserves to be handed out to everyone, as OC Matt Canada, QB Mitch Trubisky, and the skill position players all had their warts Thursday night.
Mike Tomlin expressed after the game that he wasn’t encouraged with the improved offensive play for spurts of Thursday night’s matchup, as the team failed to put together a full game to secure the win on the road. While the final score doesn’t reflect it, this game was well within Pittsburgh’s reach to being sitting at 2-1 rather than 1-2.
Still, Pittsburgh was sitting in a similar position last season at 1-3 and managed to get things turned around and make the Wild Card Round of the 2021 Playoffs. They need to get their kinks worked out on offense and get T.J. Watt back from injury to have a chance, but like Gentry said, there’s a lot of regular season left to be played for them to try and right this ship.
