The Pittsburgh Steelers brought in Darius Slay and Jalen Ramsey in hopes of covering teams like the Cincinnati Bengals straight up. That clearly didn’t work in their loss last Thursday. After Mike Tomlin’s numerous confident statements about his secondary earlier this season, their lackluster performance was quite disappointing.
Speaking with Richard Sherman on their podcast this week, Sherman asked Slay if Tomlin had anything to say after the loss. Slay mentioned that they had a “little meeting” and that he appreciates how straightforward his head coach is.
“You know Mike T, straightforward,” Slay said. “Ain’t too much positive. Only thing positive to come out of this is a learning experience of what we need to do better. We had a little meeting. One thing about Mike T, man, what I do appreciate, he thorough. He thorough now, he gonna tell you what it is… He ain’t gonna sugarcoat nothing”
Mike Tomlin doesn’t like to disparage his secondary in the media. On Tuesday, though, he admitted that their performance hasn’t been up to what he expected. He isn’t losing hope, but it’s hard to feel like the secondary didn’t take a step back last Thursday. They put together some good performances during the weeks before, but it all unraveled against Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins.
The blame can’t be assigned to one person, but some can certainly go to Slay. His worst play of the night came on this long completion allowed to Andrei Iosivas just before halftime.
This play is particularly discouraging. The Steelers had just scored, and if they could have gotten a stop, the offense would have had plenty of time to try to take the lead before halftime. Instead, Slay gets burned immediately off the line of scrimmage. Not by Chase or Higgins, but by the Bengals’ third receiver, who entered the game with several drops in recent weeks. Slay also dropped a potential interception, one that he would have had plenty of room to run had he caught it.
It was an ugly performance, but one that’s in the past. Now, Slay is looking forward to his next chance against the Bengals in Week 11.
“One thing I knew about being in this division, you got another chance,” Slay said. “We got another chance at that, man. We can’t wait until that.”
The Steelers host the Bengals in a few weeks, but they’ve got some tough matchups still before that. Slay and the secondary face Jordan Love and a deep Packers’ receiving core this Sunday. Then, they’ve got a potential MVP candidate in Daniel Jones and the first-seed Colts the following week. It doesn’t get any easier on the road against Justin Herbert in Week 10.
There’s a lot of work to do, but a lot of time remaining this season. One thing is for sure: Slay and the rest of his unit need to be much better moving forward.
