The Pittsburgh Steelers were completely lifeless in today’s 30-7 Week One loss to the San Francisco 49ers, getting outplayed early and never recovering. One of the worst plays was a fourth and 4 with 2:02 left in the fourth quarter, with QB Kenny Pickett throwing incomplete to TE Pat Freiermuth on the San Francisco 8-yard line, causing a turnover on downs. Pickett talked about that play and the need to get things turned around and fixed quickly in his postgame press conference.
“Pat saw it differently than I saw it, so it was just us communicating and being able to connect on that,” Pickett said on what went wrong on the fourth-and-4 play via the team’s YouTube channel. “That happens. Pat saw it one way, I saw it the other way. It needs to be a fix, but obviously you put a lot of time in, but we’ll get it right. I’m not worried about that. I’m more worried about us staying together, playing balanced football, doing what we put a lot of time in to do.”
The Steelers have an extra rest day with their next game coming a week from tomorrow, on Monday Night Football against the Cleveland Browns. Pickett knows the mistakes he and the rest of the team made today need to be sorted out.
“The miscues need to get fixed, quick,” Pickett said.
Pickett struggled with accuracy a bit today, missing on some throws he should’ve been able to make. In all, he finished the day with an unimpressive stat line of 31-of-46 for 232 yards and a touchdown with two interceptions.
The biggest issue on that fourth-down play where he and Freiermuth couldn’t connect was the play call itself, with every route designed to the end zone despite the Steelers needing just four yards. But there were a lot of mistakes by the players and the coaching staff, and they need to get cleaned up quick. Cleveland beat the Cincinnati Bengals today and made Joe Burrow look really bad, finishing with 82 passing yards on a 45.2 completion percentage. The Steelers can’t afford to start the season 0-2, especially with how talented the AFC is.
It was just an ugly game for Pittsburgh, and it doesn’t help the Steelers’ case to be potential contenders after getting blown out at home by one of the better teams in the league. The 49ers might be more talented than the Steelers, but it shouldn’t been a 23-point differential. Pittsburgh just looked downright bad at points, and it can’t have that happen against the Browns. It’s imperative that the Steelers figure things out and come out looking like a different team next Monday.
It’s not the preseason anymore, and the good vibes from the team’s offseason and preseason are pretty much gone. They have to show that they can hang with some of the better teams in the league, and they failed to do so today. From top to bottom, they have to clean up their mistakes and miscues, and do it quickly as Pickett said. The road isn’t getting any easier in the next few weeks.
