The Pittsburgh Steelers got blown out in their season opener against the San Francisco 49ers, losing 30-7, but center Mason Cole doesn’t think that the team is losing confidence after the embarrassing defeat.
“I think confidence is at an all-time high. Still is. I don’t think anyone’s lacking confidence after this. It’s just the ball rolled their way today and we just didn’t execute. There’s not a whole lot more to say than that, we just didn’t do our part,” Cole said via Steelers.com. “It’s a little disappointing but nobody to blame but ourselves. We know we can execute. We just didn’t, for whatever reason, today.”
The Steelers can’t get down on themselves and begin to lack confidence, especially with a divisional matchup against the Cleveland Browns on tap in Week Two. But it was a pathetic performance today, allowing San Francisco to do pretty much whatever it wanted on both sides of the ball.
But sometimes, as Cole said, it’s just about execution. The Steelers are still a talented team, but the execution just wasn’t there today. On defense, they struggled in coverage and 49ers RB Christian McCaffrey had a field day on the ground. Offensively, QB Kenny Pickett struggled with his accuracy and threw two interceptions, and the team struggled to even pick up a first down for the majority of the first half.
It was ugly, and the 49ers were the much better team today. For the Steelers, they have to work to get back on track, and maintaining that all-time high level of confidence should help them do that. The players and coaching staff know as well as anyone that an 0-2 start could be disastrous, especially with how loaded the AFC is this year. It won’t be an easy hole to climb out of, and after today’s result, picking up a win against Cleveland next week is imperative.
So even though today was as close to as bad as it gets, the Steelers need to quickly regroup and get ready for Cleveland. Losing confidence in themselves would be a pretty bad sign, so it’s good to hear Cole at least say that the confidence has remained despite how bad things were today.
They need to build some positive momentum, and that can start next week. Getting a win over Cleveland, which upset the Cincinnati Bengals today, should help that. With the Las Vegas Raiders and Houston Texans following, the Steelers have a chance to win their next three games.
But they absolutely have to play better than they did today for that to happen, and they need to figure out why the execution was so poor. If that happens and their confidence level remains high, the Steelers should be fine.
