Cameron Heyward offered a sharp critique of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ defense after their embarrassing performance on Sunday Night Football against the Green Bay Packers. He didn’t like how they handled adversity with a general lack of fight. Mike Tomlin agrees with his thoughts.
“I certainly agree with that,” Tomlin said via the team’s YouTube. “I don’t think I like how we responded to the explosion plays, field-flipping plays, drive-producing conversions [on] third downs that happened in the third quarter.”
His criticism didn’t stop at the defense.
“I didn’t think our offense responded very well to the non-call on the first third down of the half,” he said. “You don’t always have control over what happens to you in-game. Rest assured, some things are going to happen…But in that instance as a collective, we feel like we didn’t respond in the appropriate or the desired way. We didn’t smile in the face of it.”
Adversity certainly struck in the third quarter. Aaron Rodgers drew the Packers offsides. The refs didn’t see it, leading to a punt. Then a few plays later, Tucker Kraft pushed off to secure a 59-yard catch and run. Not only was the flag not thrown, but DeShon Elliott was seriously injured on the play. They can’t let that seven- to ten-point swing turn into a 28-9 blowout in the second half.
Heyward talked about the lack of fight and response to adversity creating an avalanche of negative plays. That is a fair and accurate way to describe what happened. Unfortunately for Tomlin, that is something atypical to his teams and a troubling sign of the way the group is trending.
Say what you want of Tomlin, but he’s known for one-score games for a reason. His best trait is keeping his team competitive and fighting from the opening kickoff to the ending whistle. But it felt like they gave up by the middle of the fourth quarter when the score got out of hand.
Tomlin says they are being critical of themselves after the loss, but what does it take to actually correct a lack of fight? Teams either have it or they don’t, and this group is starting to feel a distinct lack of it.
It doesn’t help that Tomlin isn’t fully willing to go there with his critique, either. He was asked more specifically about the lack of fight.
“I don’t necessarily see a lack of fight in terms of effort,” Tomlin said. “I’m talking about fight in terms of playmaking. You don’t get credit for trying hard. We’re not in the try hard business. Our fight is about production.”
That’s such an abstract concept that it’s hardly worth mentioning. Production is the output, but it takes several inputs to make it happen. Scheme, talent, effort, and sometimes luck. So which of those four is deficient? That’s what needs to be addressed.
