The Pittsburgh Steelers lost to the New England Patriots, 21-18, on Thursday Night Football. The Steelers pulled out all the stops for this game, wearing color rush uniforms, painting the end zones gold, and getting “Renegade” hitmaker Styx to sing the national anthem. None of that extra mojo amounted to a win for the Steelers as they fall to 7-6 and now find themselves on the outside looking in at the AFC playoff picture.
The Steelers were down 21-3 at one point and nearly completed a comeback. They had a chance on their last offensive drive. They went for it on 4th and 2 and opted for a deep, low-percentage throw to WR Diontae Johnson streaking up the left sideline. The pass fell incomplete and the Steelers’ chances at completing the comeback were put to rest. Johnson looked for a flag after the play but no such luck.
Head coach Mike Tomlin was asked about the fourth-down play and whether that was the primary call.
“It was,” Tomlin said in the postgame press conference posted on the team’s YouTube page. “We were down there. We play to win. We wanted to be aggressive, and we just didn’t get it done.”
The Steelers burned two timeouts earlier in the game, but even still there was 2:05 and plenty of time to go for a safer 4th and 2 play to convert and continue on their drive. Keep in mind that the score was 21-18, so the Steelers really only needed about 20 more yards to get into Chris Boswell field goal range and send the game to overtime. This was a puzzling play call given the circumstances and will likely attract a lot of attention in the media in the coming days. The Steelers had not been connecting on deep passes all game, so turning to a play like that in a critical moment deserves the criticism.
DT Cameron Heyward was asked for his reaction to the play call in the players press conference posted on the Steelers’ YouTube page.
“Go for it. I’m not running from it. He wanted to see his playmaker make a play. Didn’t make it, so be it. As a defense, I look at it like, man, we shouldn’t have been in that situation. Eighteen points is plenty and 21 is way too much.”
QB Mitch Trubisky also spoke about the play call during his press availability.
“We had multiple options. The safety was favoring GP. I liked the one-on-one with Diontae. I felt like I could throw a better ball.”
So the Steelers were wanting to go deep to one of either Johnson or Pickens and with the safety favoring Pickens, they went to Johnson. The pass was a little off-target and fell incomplete. After back-to-back losses to two-win teams, the Steelers find themselves in deep trouble regarding their hopes of making the playoffs.
