Most of the time the Pittsburgh Steelers are connected to the word “history”, it comes with positive connotations. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case every time. Last week, they became the first team with a winning record in NFL history to lose to two teams at least eight games under .500.
That dubious accomplishment came with the immense assistance of the Arizona Cardinals, who spotted them a late-surge blowout, followed by an embarrassment by the New England Patriots last Thursday. They pulled away early and hung on late, topping off at 21-3 but finishing 21-18.
The back-to-back losses to teams widely viewed as among the worst in the NFL not only greatly diminished the chances of their postseason success this season, but also called into question the team’s very integrity. The comments of multiple players since then haven’t necessarily helped that perception.
“He challenges us to give more. He knows we could play better than we’ve been playing”, WR Diontae Johnson said of head coach Mike Tomlin yesterday, via the team’s website, explaining how his messaging this week helps change the course they’ve drifted into.
“Nothing against the two teams, I feel like we’ve just been playing down to their level that past week”, Johnson added of the Cardinals and Patriots. “Once we do that, it’s hard to recover. I feel like once we get back in front where we would normally be, we’ll be fine”.
You will only very rarely ever hear a player say that they feel like they “played down” to an opponent, or otherwise admit that they underestimated a team to whom they lost. Yet Johnson, RB Jaylen Warren, and S Minkah Fitzpatrick have all said things to that effect in the past week or so.
It’s left Tomlin doing damage control in his press conferences, attempting to reframe the comments his players have made in public forums in the media to try to minimize the perception that they did not take these losing teams as seriously as was proper.
That was always going to be an unwinnable task, but to have his players continue to say that they played down to their competition certainly isn’t going to help. And I don’t recall ever hearing more players say things like this more directly than I’ve heard in the past week.
That doesn’t necessarily have to be a condemnation of the coaching staff. It could be the players who didn’t respect their opponents to the degree that they should, though Fitzpatrick’s comment about not giving Cardinals TE Trey McBride the initial respect he deserved contests that theory.
The good news is that the Steelers have an opportunity to answer for themselves, collectively, on the field on Saturday. What happened last week can’t affect this week. That’s old news. The task in front of them is to beat the Indianapolis Colts, a team in the same boat as them—7-6 with a backup quarterback.
