The Pittsburgh Steelers secured victory against the Cincinnati Bengals on the road to advance to 7-4 this season. Though the Steelers looked much better overall after the changes at offensive coordinator, putting up 421 yards as an offense, the final score of 16-10 was uncomfortably tight.
Head coach Mike Tomlin spoke to the media following the game to recap the performance.
“I thought field positioning was a component of the first half,” Tomlin said in a video posted on the Steelers’ YouTube page. “We gave up a kickoff return to midfield. We had two touchbacks on punt circumstances when we had the chance to put them on the long field. We had some penalties in the punt return game.”
The Steelers had a number of plays in this game where they shot themselves in the foot in the field-position battle. It started with the opening offensive drive when Pressley Harvin III’s punt was right near the goal line. Miles Boykin didn’t calculate things properly and touched the ball after being in the end zone for a touchback. That could have pinned the Bengals at their 1- or 2-yard line.
Then, on the Steelers’ first punt return attempt a 10-yard return was wiped out by a holding penalty called on Mark Robinson. That’s another 20-yard field position swing.
In the second quarter, Chris Boswell kicked the ball off to Trayveon Williams, who returned it 46 yards to set up the Bengals’ only touchdown drive of the game.
Finally, there was one last punt in the third quarter that could have been pinned deep, but the coverage team couldn’t quite down it before going into the end zone.
“The field positioning component probably made it a little bit more uncomfortable than it should have been,” Tomlin said. “I don’t know that the score was kind of reflective of how we were operating.”
There was also the second offensive drive disaster that saw a questionable no-touchdown call on a pass to Diontae Johnson in the end zone. A few plays later Jaylen Warren fumbled to keep the Steelers scoreless. So while the offense executed at a much more efficient level, special teams and untimely turnovers limited the Steelers’ scoring. One hurdle was cleared by reaching the 400-yard mark, the next hurdle will be putting up points consistently. One step at a time.
