The Pittsburgh Steelers have not been 3-7 in a long time. I don’t even know when it last happened, but it’s the first time they have been in this bad a shape this far into the season in the Mike Tomlin era. Even back in 2013 when they started out 0-4 and then 2-6, they made it to 5-6 before losing again.
This team has had a hard time finding the win column in 2022, to put it mildly. There are mitigating factors: breaking in a rookie quarterback, who didn’t even start the season, certainly doesn’t help, nor does missing your DPOY for most of the year. But excuses or not, they’re still 3-7, and they still have to keep playing. That’s the focus.
“We got a game next week. This business is crazy. You have to learn from each experience whether it’s good, whether it’s bad, and you have to move forward,” outside linebacker T.J. Watt said after the game via the team’s website about how the team can avoid succumbing to frustration under the circumstances.
Basically, there just isn’t enough time to give in to the frustration. There’s enough work that needs to be done to keep you busy, and the worse you’re doing, the more work there is to try to get you to where you need to be.
“We’re not where we want to be clearly right now, but sitting here and sulking about it isn’t gonna do anything,” Watt added. “We have to be real with what we put on tape. We can’t take everything personally. We have to digest the film and we have to practice hard and then come out next week with a better performance.”
I would recommend consumption in intervals and something to wash it down with when attempting to digest this particular film reel for the defense, because having watched it live, I can only imagine it’s going to be a tough pill to swallow.
The Bengals, of course, put up 37 points, as well as over 400 yards of offense. While the Steelers did well enough on third down, they were otherwise terrible situationally, allowing Cincinnati to score a touchdown every time they got into the red zone.
“We’ve got to make people settle for field goals,” head coach Mike Tomlin said after the game, as we covered last night. “We can’t allow people to score touchdowns at the rate they scored tonight. You gotta make them settle for field goals. We didn’t do that and that’s why the game ended up the way it ended up.”
It was only the third time all season the Steelers allowed three touchdowns inside the red zone, and the first since the game against the New York Jets. Even in the blowout loss to the Buffalo Bills, the defense limited the damage inside the 20, allowing only one touchdown on four trips.
