What an embarrassment.
Sunday’s 24-10 loss to the Arizona Cardinals at Acrisure Stadium in a long, strange afternoon of football that featured two lengthy weather delays and multiple injuries to key starters for the Pittsburgh Steelers might be the worst loss of the Mike Tomlin era in the regular season.
Arizona came in at 2-10 on the season, had the third-worst run defense in football, had allowed the second-most points per game in the NFL and really wasn’t much of a threat at all — at least on paper. That’s why they play the games though.
Arizona did whatever it wanted Sunday, kicking the Steelers’ ass, as star outside linebacker T.J. Watt said following the loss.
Pittsburgh head coach Mike Tomlin summed it up as only Tomlin can.
“That was a horrible day at the office. We didn’t do much right in that game, to be quite honest with you. And so we gotta own that, obviously, starting first and foremost with me. Just losing football. Really was. We were highly penalized. Some pre-snap penalties, some operational penalties, bad snaps. Just JV football in a lot of ways,” Tomlin said to reporters Sunday, according to video via the Steelers’ YouTube page. “We just weren’t good enough throughout the game. We didn’t play a good game today. …But again, it’s, as I mentioned, we need to look no further than the mirror. We didn’t do it today and we got a short week and so no time to feel sorry for ourselves and things of that nature.”
Tomlin had some heat behind his words, along with body language that was very clearly frustrated with how his team performed Sunday against the Cardinals in a game that the Steelers were heavily favored. Instead, Pittsburgh fell flat on its face and never had a prayer of winning the game after failing to score on a 4th and 1, and then allowing the Cardinals to drive 99 yards for a touchdown right before halftime.
Outside of that sequence in the game, the Steelers had some disastrous snaps from center Mason Cole, one of which led to a lost fumble charged to backup QB Mitch Trubisky. It gave the Cardinals a short field, leading to a James Conner touchdown and a 17-3 lead in the third quarter.
Outside of the bad snaps, the Steelers struggled with penalties offensively, particularly being able to line up properly. That’s junior varsity-level football, and it happened multiple times Sunday. Then there were the issues on special teams, too, particularly from special teams captain Miles Killebrew, who had three huge penalties in the loss. Can’t have that from a captain.
The good news for the Steelers is that it’s a short week. They have to flush this performance — and fast — and prepare for New England coming to town Thursday night. New England is just 2-10 as well, so the Steelers can’t be overlooking the woeful Patriots, either.
Any given Sunday (or Monday, Thursday or Saturday) in the NFL.
A horrible day at the office, no doubt, with a lot of JV football. But turn the page and move on to New England — and quickly.
