The Pittsburgh Steelers have been nothing short of disappointing to end this season. After controlling the AFC North for most of the year, they dropped their last four games to likely fall to the sixth seed in the playoffs. Part of the reason the Steelers lost to the Cincinnati Bengals was their inability to convert on fourth down near the end of the first half. It was a bold decision by Mike Tomlin, and he explained why he made that call.
“We had timeouts, they had timeouts, I didn’t want to give the ball back to them,” Tomlin said after the Steelers’ 19-17 loss via the team’s YouTube channel. “I like to be aggressive in those moments. If you can’t get a yard, you don’t deserve to win. Obviously, we didn’t.”
That’s a good summary from Tomlin. In all aspects of the game, the Steelers didn’t deserve to win. That fourth-down attempt summarizes their offensive misery well. Down 10-7 and with a little less than a minute left in the first half, the Steelers had an opportunity to at least tie the game. Instead, they allowed more of the same problems to plague them.
The Steelers didn’t just fail to pick up one yard on fourth down. They also couldn’t pick it up on third down. Their short-yardage offense has been abysmal this year. This isn’t the first time they’ve made even the simplest things look impossible on offense. The first game against the Cleveland Browns comes to mind as another example.
Outside of Pat Freiermuth, nothing about the Steelers’ offense was good enough against the Bengals. It wasn’t just short yardage. Their first touchdown drive looked fine, but besides that, they appeared disjointed for the entire game.
With how close the final score ended up being, that failed fourth-down conversion looms large. As a result of that failure, the Bengals managed to add a field goal before the first half closed. In a two-point game, that ended up being a huge factor.
The Steelers looked terrible Saturday night, and now they’re staggering into the playoffs on a four-game losing streak. That can’t feel good. These same problems have bedeviled them for most of the year too. Not much of this is new.
Going into the postseason, we’ll see if maybe their offense can look any better. It’s tough to have much hope, though. Like Tomlin said, not being able to pick up one yard is deflating.
And in the Steelers’ case defining.
