Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin often says that he does not like to “paint with a broad brush.” After losing a third straight game Saturday in Indianapolis, though, Tomlin understood it was time to use a few wide strokes when describing what is wrong with his team.
One of them was referring to the group as “fundamentally poor.” On Monday, he expanded on what that meant.
“There’s December levels of execution, and then there’s September levels of execution,” Tomlin explained. “Five penalties from a unit (offense) is September-like. That’s going to slow you down in December when you’re trying to drive, engineer, keep pace, and score and do the things that you’re doing when you’re engineering victory this time of year.”
It’s been so long since the Steelers have put together four quarters of solid football that I don’t even know what month they last did such a thing. But I do know that in both September and December, Tomlin’s team gave up 30 points to opponents and lost multi-score games.
For Steelers fans, it’s a winter of their discontent.
Rightfully so. The Steelers are in the dying weeks of what appears to be a seventh straight season without a playoff win. That’s manifesting by virtue of a late-season collapse for the fourth time in six years.
At one point in 2018, Tomlin’s Steelers were 7-2-1. The 2019 iteration was 8-5. They both missed the playoffs. The 2020 team was 11-0 and proceeded to lose five of six to close out the year, including a home playoff loss to the covid-19-addled Cleveland Browns.
Now, this year’s edition has tumbled from 7-4 and in the top wild-card slot to 7-7 and currently out of the playoff bracket.
“It starts with me. Forget the coaching staff. It starts with me,” Tomlin said Monday. “We’re going to work every day. We’re going to have a can-do attitude. We’re not going to be helpless; we’re going to be helpful, the collective individuals.”
Well, “helpless” has been a perfect way to describe the defense most of the past three weeks, and the offense “can-do” nothing right regardless of who is at quarterback and who is the offensive coordinator.
The biggest problem with the Steelers right now is that everything is a problem.
Personally, I know that anytime I write a column or send out a social media post advancing a critical opinion about one specific aspect of the franchise, I get pushback in the opposite direction.
If I say it’s the players, you fire back at me that it’s the coaching.
If I ridicule the general manager and scouts, you tell me to blame ownership.
If I rip the offense, you tell me to blame the defense.
If I complain about underperforming star players, you insist the big problem is a lack of depth.
Here’s the thing, folks: None of that is wrong. Every single one of our points is valid.
Frankly, I’m getting a little tired of trying to separate which one is the deepest issue. Things are such a mess with this team right now that trying to identify which one is the “biggest” problem ends up letting every other group off the hook way too much.
If we keep arguing over which mountain is the biggest, we are going to talk ourselves into thinking all the other concerns are molehills.
That’s simply not accurate.
Tomlin can keep going on and on about September football and December football all he wants. I just know that unless a Christmas miracle is bestowed upon Pittsburgh, his team won’t be in the playoffs.
And if that’s the case — again — Art Rooney II should do a complete overhaul starting in January.
