After the Pittsburgh Steelers became the first above .500 team in NFL history to lose back-to-back games to teams that were at least eight games under .500 coming into the matchup when they lost to the New England Patriots on Thursday, safety Minkah Fitzpatrick ripped the team’s attitude and effort and said that players are just expecting to win because of the uniform they wear. Appearing on ESPN’s Get Up this morning, former Steelers safety Ryan Clark said Fitzpatrick’s comments, coupled with the lack of preparedness from the Steelers, is proof that Mike Tomlin has to change the way he coaches.
“When you start a game against the New England Patriots, a team that couldn’t score points the last three weeks, but has only given up 10, you realize if you give up 21 to them, that you aren’t prepared. When you aren’t prepared — and this is gonna be something you’ve never heard me say — when you aren’t prepared, it has to start with the head coach,” Clark said. “He has to also understand that the people in his locker room don’t understand effort. The people in his locker room don’t understand execution. So the same messaging that would get across to the Troy Polamalus, the same messaging that would get across to the Ben Roethlisbergers, are not connecting with these young men in the locker room.”
Clark, who played for Tomlin and has called him his favorite coach in football, said Tomlin needs to change if the Steelers are going to change.
“So Mike Tomlin has to change, what they do offensively has to change. And the effort and sort of accountability and pressure put on those people in that locker room has to be different or nothing will change when it comes to the outcome of games,” he said.
Whatever Tomlin is currently doing isn’t working. That much is clear. Losing to back-to-back 2-10 teams, games the Steelers coming into were widely expected to win, is awful. Whether it’s Tomlin not understanding how the players in the locker room tick or not, it’s clear he has to change something.
No one on this team is Troy Polamalu or Ben Roethlisberger, but you’d think Tomlin would be able to get this team to understand the importance of not dropping a second straight game to a 2-10 team, especially on a short week. But I guess not because they came out flat and unprepared again and lost to a team that’s played worse than the Arizona Cardinals, whom the Steelers lost to in Week 13, have this season. It’s a major indictment of the coaching staff.
The Steelers under Polamalu and Roethlisberger expected to win Super Bowls. It doesn’t seem like this team, outside of a select few, cares all that much. Tomlin isn’t getting these guys ready to play, and while he wants to claim execution is the problem, he’s keeping guys on the field too long. Why play Mykal Walker in sub-packages when, for the second week in a row, he’s continually getting picked apart by the opposing offense and letting its tight end take over the game? It’s just bad coaching, and Tomlin has to change more than just his leadership style, like Clark suggests.
Honestly, the fact that the players’ attitudes have gone to just expecting they’re going to win should fall on Tomlin, too. As the head coach, he and the rest of the coaching staff should be benching players who aren’t giving it a full go or just waltzing in and expecting to win just because an opponent’s record is bad.
After two of the worst losses of the NFL season, the Steelers don’t look like a team that’s going to make the playoffs. They’re outside of the AFC playoffs right now, and it’s going to be an uphill battle to make the postseason after peeing down their leg against two two-win teams.
Clark’s right that Tomlin has to change. And he has to do it fast to salvage the season. If he doesn’t, this team will go its seventh straight season without a playoff win. At this point, the Steelers are turning into the New York Yankees. They might have the most Super Bowl rings, but nothing they’ve done in recent history has mattered. Their relevancy is because of their brand, not because they’ve actually played good football. The Standard has slipped, and Tomlin is culpable.
