The optimism surrounding the Pittsburgh Steeles and the prospects of their 2023 season came to a screeching halt Sunday after a blowout loss to the San Francisco 49ers. Pittsburgh looked completely outmatched on offense and defense as the 49ers had their way with the home team Sunday afternoon. They put 30 points on the scoreboard while making the offense that had been explosive in the preseason look like the unit that started the 2022 season as the Steelers struggled to get anything going in the 30-7 loss.
Head coach Mike Tomlin spoke about his unit getting outplayed after the game while some players expressed their frustration about the bad loss. However, RB Najee Harris appeared calm and collected talking to the media, stating that Week One is just a snippet of a long season that Pittsburgh needs to take a week at a time.
“It’s just a part of sport, you know?” Harris told reporters via video from Amanda Godsey’s Twitter page. “You’re going to win some you’re going to lose some. You don’t destroy the whole house and destroy the whole plan. You just keep finding ways to build and build the game plan. And if we find that, we worry about how to get better off that. There’s nowhere in-between where you are just going to settle for where it is. You know, we come out and win next week, we gotta worry about how we’re going to win next week. It’s football. It’s sports. You win some you lose some. Just worry about the team getting better.”
With the “fire Mike Tomlin” and “the season is over” statements coming in after the bad loss, Harris has a very good point. If Week One was a determinant of the entire season, Pittsburgh should have been a playoff-caliber team last season after getting by the Cincinnati Bengals in overtime. Pittsburgh ended up going 1-6 after that win before its bye week but managed to rally in the second half of the season, going 7-2 down the strength and nearly made the playoffs.
This loss sucks; there’s no sugarcoating it. However, instead of attempting to make drastic changes to the game plan after one bad week, Pittsburgh can focus on executing better on the game plan as constructed. Harris mentioned the exact same thing last season, stating that the Steelers had to execute better instead of making wholesale changes.
We saw during the preseason that Pittsburgh is fully capable of making explosive plays and putting points on the board. Today, the Steelers couldn’t get out of their own way as the offensive line struggled to open up holes in the running game and QB Kenny Pickett missed receivers and forced passes into coverage.
Pittsburgh needs to learn from its mistakes in this game, but then it’s best to burn the tape and move on. They can get right back on track next week with a win next Monday night against the Cleveland Browns, who just beat the Cincinnati Bengals, getting off to a good start in the AFC North division race.
“It’s a long season, 16 games left, so stressing out for one game, that’s not what we’re going to do,” Harris told reporters. “We need to watch film and worry about the Browns.”
