The widespread belief after watching the Steelers and 49ers play on Sunday was that San Francisco was by far the better football team. It’s hard to argue that after Pittsburgh got slapped around, losing 30-7 in a laugher at home.
Still, 49ers LB Fred Warner said that Pittsburgh is a talented team, one he expects to do well this season, citing that it just wasn’t the Steelers day. RG James Daniels told reporters Wednesday morning that it was the minor details that cost the offense opportunities to score and keep up with San Francisco.
“I thought they were more focused than we were and that’s a huge problem playing against a defense like that,” Daniels said to the media, according to a tweet by Brian Batko of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
This comes as a bit of a disappointment as head coach Mike Tomlin usually does a good job of having his team prepared for a Week One regular-season opener. That was not the case last Sunday as Pittsburgh looked flat while San Francisco jumped to a commanding 20-0 lead before Pittsburgh scored at the end of the first half.
Chris Long recently said on The Rich Eisen Show that Pittsburgh looked unprepared for the 49ers, which is a phrase that you hardly ever hear from a Tomlin-coached team to enter the season. Multiple members on the offensive side of the football mentioned that there was a lack of execution occurring from an individual and collective basis as guys were missing their assignments, leading to blown plays. QB Kenny Pickett looked especially out of sorts. He missed throws he normally completes easily while also forcing passes he knows he shouldn’t have thrown, leading to two turnovers.
Missing plays on the field will happen, but a lack of focus and being prepared is something easily within the realm of controllables for Pittsburgh. Hopefully getting kicked in the teeth against the 49ers will be the hard lesson Pittsburgh needs to prevent it from sleepwalking into stadiums going forward and banking on building momentum over time rather than getting off to a fast start, which is needed to compete with the top teams in the league.
