Each week in the NFL is littered with bad coaching decisions, and one of them this time around unsurprisingly belongs to none other than Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin.
The media highlighted his awful Week 15 decision to punt instead of trusting the usually reliable leg of kicker Chris Boswell when down by 11 with 18 minutes to play.
Tomlin had an opportunity to put points on the board when Pittsburgh had a fourth down at the Indianapolis Colts’ 39-yard line. He opted to bypass giving Boswell — who made five of six from 50 and beyond this season — a chance to make it a one-score game on a 57-yard attempt under the dome of Lucas Oil Stadium.
Boswell was on the field, ready to help his squad when he was called off. And his disapproval was shared by Steelers faithful everywhere.
Tomlin trusted his inconsistent punter and that approach didn’t work. While Tomlin said he hoped to pin the Colts deep inside their five-yard line, Pressley Harvin III netted just 22 yards, setting them up at their 17.
The decision on the previous play was almost as egregious.
“On the play before, instead of choosing to get Boswell closer on third-and-14, the Steelers, in a big offensive hole, threw incomplete deep for George Pickens instead of just trying to get it closer to make it a one-score game,” NBC Sports columnist Peter King wrote. “Bad day for the Steelers and their coach.”
For that, King flippantly named Tomlin “Goat of the Week” in his Football Morning in America column.
Tomlin clearly over-thought the decision and second-guessed himself in the process. He explained his reasoning in his postgame presser.
“You know, on the play before, I wanted to be aggressive and take a shot down the field, and that wasn’t afforded to us,” Tomlin said on Saturday. “And so, then I wanted to check the ball down, we didn’t. We threw the ball out of bounds, and we didn’t improve our field goal positioning.
“We were looking at a 56, 57-yard field goal with our defense leaking the way that it was leaking. I wanted to maintain a posture where we protected them, as opposed to potentially put them in harm’s way. If you miss a long field goal, the defense is working on a short field. And I just didn’t feel like we were positioned to expose them in that way.
I thought it was more prudent, given the amount of time left in play, to try to work them on the long field and protect the defense.”
The leaking defense gave up a field goal on a 15-play, 70-yard drive to go up 27-13.
We all know how it went from there.
