There were a number of controversies and coaching shortcomings in the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 27-13 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, but none more egregious than punting with just over 10 minutes remaining while trailing by two scores in the fourth quarter.
An analytics bot called Surrender Index 90 on X, which calculates “cowardly punts” showed that this decision was in the 95th percentile for cowardly punts since 1999.
Obviously the Steelers weren’t playing to lose, so what was the rationale behind this decision? Mike Tomlin explained Monday during his weekly press conference.
“It was the distance. Had it been inside of maybe fourth and five, I probably would have definitively gone for it. We were outside of five, it was seven,” Tomlin said via the Steelers’ YouTube page. “Obviously from an analytical perspective, the further you get away from the line to gain, the less probable you are of success.”
On one hand, the Steelers barely had any plays go for over seven yards all day. I also understand wanting to pin the Eagles deep and have the defense force a quick punt to give the offense a short field, but I think Tomlin missed the mark here. He cited analytics as a reason why he wouldn’t go for it when analytics would suggest they should certainly go for it given the game circumstance in the fourth quarter.
What ended up happening was the Eagles getting the ball back with over 10 minutes and then running 23 plays to burn the clock down to zero. The 27-13 score actually looked better than it should have been as the Eagles were in scoring position to end the game.
“Fourth and seven probably would require max protection in terms of fourth and five or less, generally does not,” Tomlin said. “We had three timeouts. It was about midway of the fourth. I took a chance and thought we could maybe stop ’em and get the ball back and play the field-position game.”
This is a tough pill to swallow given how often the Eagles were picking up chunk plays on the Steelers. They didn’t have any plays cooked up to gain seven when they needed it the most.
I think one major piece of the puzzle that was ignored in this scenario is the exhaustion and attrition of the defense. The Steelers entered the game without DeShon Elliott and Larry Ogunjobi, and Donte Jackson was injured during the first half. The Eagles also had two-straight drives of 13 plays or more leading up to this punt decision in the second half. The defense was exhausted and undermanned. In that situation, the offense needed to be the unit to step up.
“Make no mistake, there are two sides to that coin in terms of decision making,” Tomlin said. “But I’m comfortable with the process that we went through at the time in terms of how we played that situation.”
Tomlin always has tremendous belief in his defense, but sometimes that can be to a fault.
