Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin wants his players to understand one thing very clearly this week after the Minkah Fitzpatrick penalty. You can’t control many things in the game of football, and the accuracy of the officiating is one of them. This is a hot topic this week in Pittsburgh after the Fitzpatrick penalty proved a significant moment in Sunday’s loss to the Indianapolis Colts.
Late in the third quarter, QB Joe Flacco threw incomplete to WR Adonai Mitchell. Minkah Fitzpatrick had a bead on the play and appeared to slow up while making unavoidable contact. The officials threw a flag for unnecessary roughness on the Steelers. Tomlin said yesterday, however, that the league disagreed with the call, but it’s too little, too late.
“You’re going to get wronged from time to time, just like the opponent’s going to make a play from time to time”, Tomlin said, via the Steelers’ website. “It’s how we respond to it. We still had a lot of opportunity to win that game after that call in particular”.
The penalty occurred on 2nd and 10 at the Colts’ 42, sparing them of a 3rd and long. They moved into Steelers territory at the 43 with a new set of downs and eventually scored a touchdown. Rather than an opportunity for the Steelers to get off the field on 3rd and 10, the Colts doubled their lead to 14 points, in part thanks to the Fitzpatrick penalty.
The Steelers responded with two more consecutive touchdown drives, but the Colts netted a field goal in between. That proved to be the difference in 27-24 game, at least as far as the scoreboard goes. But either way, Tomlin is right: they had a chance to win in spite of the uncontrollable wrong.
While Tomlin said the league didn’t like the call, he said, “It doesn’t help me on a Monday. So on Sundays, we’d better be mentally tough, and we better move on to the next snap and just understand at times that’s a component of the game”.
The Steelers benefited from a questionable roughing the passer penalty on their opening drive, for example. Unlike the Colts after Minkah Fitzpatrick’s flag, however, Tomlin’s team did little to nothing with it, ultimately punting. Tomlin even passed up a long field goal opportunity, already sitting in a 7-0 hole.
What the Steelers could have controlled on that drive was not committing stupid penalties. RG Spencer Anderson, playing for James Daniels, who tore his Achilles earlier on the drive, committed an unnecessary roughness infraction. That was an obvious penalty and easily avoidable, neither of which was the case with Minkah Fitzpatrick. Instead of 3rd and 8 at the Colts’ 34, it was 3rd and 23 at the 49. They got to the 41, but Tomlin passed on the field-goal opportunity.
One thing I’m sure Mike Tomlin is telling his players is that every team experiences a wrong from the officiating crew from time to time. Nearly every fan base believes the league targets their team, which obviously means it targets nobody in particular.
It’s just that they are uniformly bad at their jobs, which, I will remind you, are part-time for no good reason. Tomlin is on the competition committee and is in favor of full-time officials. But even that can’t entirely eliminate bad calls, especially in fast-paced plays like Fitzpatrick’s hit.
