When you get your butt kicked, you better be prepared to be reminded of it constantly from the outside.
That’s what’s happening to the Pittsburgh Steelers today after taking a beating from the San Francisco 49ers in their regular season home opener, losing 30-7. The offense looked pitiful for much of the contest while the defense couldn’t stop RB Christian McCaffrey from tearing them apart on the ground, as well as QB Brock Purdy from having his way through the air, helping WR Brandon Aiyuk have a big day.
Rich Eisen & Chris Brockman spoke about the game on The Overreaction Monday Podcast where Brockman posed to Eisen that Pittsburgh should no longer be considered a potential playoff team after what they saw yesterday.
“I’ll say that’s an overreaction again because it’s just one week,” Eisen said on the podcast which aired on The Rich Eisen Show’s YouTube channel. “Talk to me in November. Chris Long on the show today said that they looked unprepared, which is a word that you rarely hear, if ever, about a Mike Tomlin team. I’ll just go under the guise of bury the tape, move on.”
We expected Tomlin to be prepared to go for Week One as he’s traditionally done a great job having his teams prepared for their opening opponent. CB Patrick Peterson and former Steelers CB Bryant McFadden mentioned on the All Things Covered podcast that Tomlin is a wizard when he has so much time to prepare for an opponent, pointing to wins against the Cincinnati Bengals last year and the Buffalo Bills in 2021 to open the season as major upsets that Tomlin had his team ready to play.
That obviously wasn’t the case on Sunday as San Francisco was clearly the better team on the field in the blowout. Still, one can take some optimism from this like Eisen points to, suggesting that Tomlin and the team will take this loss personally, learn from it, and then bury the tape as they look to be better prepared for their next game against the Cleveland Browns next Monday night.
Tomlin has been able to rally the troops before after getting punched in the teeth, and he is capable of doing it again. One would wish that Pittsburgh could be better prepared and get off to a fast start out the gate, not having to take lumps like these along the road. Still, this is the National Football League, and the San Francisco 49ers are considered a Super Bowl contending team. It was a great reality check for Pittsburgh Week One, knowing that they don’t have to be the same team in Week 17 that they are now, much like how they finished the 2022 season on a high note after a rough start.
