The outside noise surrounding the Pittsburgh Steelers is getting louder and louder after a third straight loss, the latest one on the road to the Indianapolis Colts.
Last week, it was former Steelers Ryan Clark and Ben Roethlisberger speaking up about issues with the Steelers and the lack of a true culture inside the franchise with today’s roster. That outside noise will get louder this week as the Steelers looked lifeless and another young player in George Pickens showed poor effort on a run play, raising more questions and concerns.
For Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin though, that outside noise is just that: outside noise. The team better not be focusing on it or worrying about it.
“Man, nobody outside our locker room is gonna make a play,” Tomlin said Monday during his weekly press conference, according to video via the Steelers’ YouTube page. And so we better focus our energies on those that are inside the locker room and their level of readiness and their ability to, and how we divide the labor up. This is professional football. What we do gets analyzed.
“If you’ve been in this business any length of time, you know and understand that and hopefully you embrace that, the competitor in you better embrace that. And so that’s what I’m looking for from my collective.”
It is professional football, and the Steelers do get analyzed. Right now, things are critical when it comes to those analyzing as the Steelers have dropped three straight, fallen out of the AFC playoff picture and largely look like they are folding entirely under Tomlin.
That’s led to the outside noise growing in a major way, becoming rather deafening right now, at least on the outside. Inside the locker room the players undoubtedly hear the noise. Heck, they’ve been asked about it over the last week, especially Roethlisberger’s comments about the Steeler Way being lost on this current team.
Guys like Cameron Heyward and Najee Harris had to address the comments, leading to rather differing responses.
But, as Tomlin stated, nobody outside of the locker room making that noise is going to make a play on the field for the Steelers. Therefore, the focus has to remain inside the locker room and preparing for their Week 15 game against the Cincinnati Bengals at Acrisure Stadium. Things aren’t great right now, but blocking out that noise and outside distraction is paramount for the Steelers.
They seemingly haven’t done a good job of it to this point.
Tomlin and the players can say all that they want about blocking out the noise, preparing, and smiling in the face of adversity, et cetera. Saying and doing are two different things though, and Tomlin knows that.
“It’s not about what we say at this juncture. It’s not about what anybody says at this juncture. The road is getting narrow and so what you do when you step in stadiums speaks a hell of a lot more than what comes outta your mouth,” Tomlin said to reporters. “That’s my mentality. That’s what I want their mentality to be.
“Oftentimes they address issues outside noise and things of that nature. They’re simply [answering] questions that are being relayed to them by you guys, which is their job. But it does not have our focus. Preparedness and our play at the end of the week has our focus.”
Again, that’s lip service. The Steelers are saying all the right things — for the most part — when it comes to sessions with the media, focusing on execution, preparation, and more. But their actions speak louder than their words.
Right now, the actions are stating that the Steelers are a bad football team that is too easily distracted and ill-prepared.
