The Pittsburgh Steelers dropped to a new level of low many didn’t know was possible after losing back-to-back games to the Cardinals and Patriots. They lost on the road to the Indianapolis Colts, 30-13, dropping their third-straight game and to 7-7 on the season. Pittsburgh dropped to the 11th seed in the AFC, falling out of the playoff field completely with the outlook being pretty bleak to get back in it with the teams now ahead of the Steelers in the standings.
Head coach Mike Tomlin didn’t hold back in his postgame press conference.
“Alright, man, let’s be honest,” Tomlin said to the media via video from the Steelers’ YouTube channel. “We’re a fundamentally poor football group right now. We’re playing losing football, and I take responsibility for that. By losing football, I mean we’re just not doing fundamental things well enough. We’re turning the ball over. We’re highly penalized. We don’t play good in situations. And so, I’m just acknowledging that. I don’t necessarily have the answers as we sit here today. If I had the answers, we would’ve played differently today.
“But I will acknowledge, man, things won’t continue the way that they are. We’re not gonna keep doing the same things that we’re doing and expect or hope for a different result. And so, we got a seven-day turnaround. We’ll see what those seven days hold for us, but I’m just acknowledging right now that we’re playing losing football and I own that. Not a good day.”
The Steelers are playing losing football, and Tomlin is right in taking responsibility for it. He had this group sitting at 7-4 with the 2-10 Cardinals and the 2-10 Patriots coming to town, setting up a good stretch run if the Steelers could just come out and play their game against two of the worst teams in football this season.
Pittsburgh did anything but that, looking like a team with no sense of urgency as it lost to both Arizona and New England and then managed to blow a 13-point lead today against Indianapolis. The Steelers allowing 30 unanswered points as the Colts’ running game decimated Pittsburgh’s defense while the offense continued to look poor with lack of execution and untimely errors.
The issues in Pittsburgh have deteriorated to the point where a team that was a near-lock for the postseason three weeks ago is now on the outside looking in. And the Steelers only have themselves to blame. Tomlin has stood by then, stating that they just need to execute better and prepare during the week in practice to get different results. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. We’ve now seen the Steelers repeat the same errors over and over with no evidence of change coming. Plenty have criticized Tomlin for Pittsburgh getting to this point, and now he’s looking at himself in the mirror, recognizing that he needs to check himself and make real changes in order to have his football team improve from the losing team that it has become.
