The Pittsburgh Steelers got embarrassed on their home field to the 2-10 Arizona Cardinals, losing 24-10 in a game where they looked completely outclassed. RB Jaylen Warren said that the Steelers may have taken the Cardinals too lightly ahead of their matchup.
“Just taking them lightly, lighter than we should have,” Warren said about the Cardinals, per Joe Rutter of TribLive on Twitter. Warren also said the Steelers “let the highs get too high” after a 421-yard output against the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 12.
With a short week ahead of them, it was easy for the Steelers to overlook the 2-10 Cardinals. After two AFC North road matchups, the Steelers returned home to take on one of the NFL’s worst teams. Well, the Steelers looked like one of the NFL’s worst teams instead. Arizona was able to move the ball on them and not let Pittsburgh’s offense do much of anything.
A lot went wrong for the Steelers, and injuries didn’t help. Losing LB Elandon Roberts early in the game hurt the team’s defense, and then QB Kenny Pickett suffering an ankle injury affected the team’s offense. But even before that, Arizona didn’t make life easy for Pittsburgh, and the game ended up getting out of hand.
In the NFL, every team is talented. There’s a reason why guys are in the NFL, and it’s because they’re good football players, no matter what team they’re on or the success of the team. You can’t afford to take any opponent lightly, and despite numerous Steelers saying that wasn’t the case, Warren admitted it might have been, and that can be a factor in the loss.
Warren also said there could’ve been a problem in the team’s preparation when it came to overlooking the Cardinals, per Brooke Pryor of ESPN.
That falls on the coaching staff, with Mike Tomlin at the top of it. The Steelers are too talented to lose to 2-10 teams, and if Tomlin and the rest of the coaching staff contributed to the Steelers taking Arizona lightly, that’s an issue. The Steelers looked good against the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 12, but they can’t let that success get to their head and automatically think it’s going to carry over. They weren’t prepared today, and they fell flat against a Cardinals team that isn’t good but better than their record indicates.
That can’t happen going forward, and certainly can’t happen on Thursday against the 2-10 New England Patriots, who will come into Acrisure Stadium off a 6-0 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers. Hopefully, this can be a lesson for Pittsburgh to not take any team or game for granted, but if it is, it was a hard and unneeded lesson to learn.
