The Pittsburgh Steelers value takeaways. On defense, they want to create as many as possible. And on offense, they want to protect the ball as best as they can. Unfortunately, the Steelers failed in both during the last two games. And both ended up as losses.
The Steelers failed to force a turnover against the Cincinnati Bengals and the Green Bay Packers. And they turned the ball over in both games. They also failed to force a turnover against the Cleveland Browns, but they did protect the ball, so they did not lose the turnover battle (and they won that game). Head coach Mike Tomlin addressed the Steelers’ failures with turnovers Tuesday during his weekly press conference.
“The turnover component of the game is something that we value here, obviously, and is one of the building blocks for engineering victory for us,” Tomlin said, per video provided by the team’s YouTube channel. “We turned the ball over in the second half [against the Packers]. We didn’t get any turnovers. I think that’s the second game in a row that we didn’t get any turnovers, and that hadn’t been us. And we certainly need to get back to that component of our winning formula, protecting and preserving the football while taking it away from our opponents. That certainly is gonna be significant this week when we lean in and play the Colts, man. They’re a group that does that very well.”
Turnovers can be a fickle thing. Sometimes, especially when it comes to fumbles, it’s complete luck. A football is a very odd-shaped object. When thrown, it flies through the air quite well. But when it’s dropped on the ground, it bounces in all sorts of directions. A team can force a lot of fumbles, but it’s the recovery that’s the hard part. The ball can bounce directly to an offensive player, or it can bounce out of bounds.
Teams cannot control what happens once the ball is on the ground. It’s a read-and-react situation. But teams can make attacking the football a focus. And the Steelers want to do that. They’ve forced eight fumbles this season. That’s tied for the fourth-most in the league with the Minnesota Vikings and the San Francisco 49ers. However, they’ve only recovered four of them. That’s tied for eighth-most with seven teams.
When it comes to interceptions, the Steelers have recorded five this season. That’s tied for 15th in the league with their Pennsylvania neighbors, the Philadelphia Eagles. Interceptions are wonky in their own way, too. Either a defender has to make a great play, or you have to hope the quarterback (or receiver) makes a very bad play.
Even then the defender still has to catch the ball. There’s an old joke about if a cornerback (or any secondary player) had hands, they’d be a wide receiver. Tomlin said that the Steelers had opportunities in the Browns game to take the ball away and failed. But he won’t change the emphasis, even if things haven’t bounced their way in recent weeks.
“We’re just gonna keep working, man,” Tomlin said. “We feel really good about our values regarding our turnover culture, the things we tangibly do, the physical labor we do week in and week out on a routine basis, not in a reactionary way relative to the fact that we’re not getting turnovers. No, it’s just a component of our everyday business. It has and will continue to be, because we value that component of play. We’re not getting the fruit of that labor, but we’re committed to continuing to work.”
