The Pittsburgh Steelers got off to a hot start against the Washington Commanders with a 7-0 lead and the defense forcing two early three and outs. It was all Pittsburgh for the first several minutes of the game. That is, until a fake punt pass from Miles Killebrew to James Pierre was dropped and set up an easy Commanders score to tie it up at 7-7.
Mike Tomlin discussed how he called the game aggressively after the Steelers’ 28-27 win at Northwest Stadium and talked about the fake punt.
“We’re not going to live in our fears, that’s just how we get down,” Tomlin said via the Steelers’ YouTube page. “Same thing on the fake punt. That is me. I own that. I’ll do it again. But we didn’t execute it, so it was a bad idea.”
Fake plays and trick plays are always judged in hindsight. Did it work? Then the coach is a genius! But when they fail, it makes everybody look bad. That is just the nature of those types of plays. In this case, it was called perfectly with a wide-open Pierre, but he failed to catch the pass.
Sometimes the fake punt plays are checked to at the line of scrimmage if coverage is favorable while other times they are called ahead of time to be aggressive. It is hard to tell exactly what happened here, though Tomlin seems to be suggesting it was his idea. That might mean it was premeditated, but it could also just mean that he is absorbing blame, as is his job as the head coach.
For what it’s worth, Tomlin was asked later during his postgame press conference if he came into Sunday expecting to try a fake punt that early in the game.
“Absolutely,” Tomlin said.
It would have blown the game wide open had the play worked, and the play was obviously there to be made. Sometimes things don’t work out. Had the Steelers lost, they would have taken a ton of heat for that call. Because they won, it will be forgotten rather quickly until the next time they do it.
