Use all the necessary qualifiers you want, including the fact that Aaron Rodgers was throwing DK Metcalf–style routes to, well, someone who wasn’t DK Metcalf, in the frantic, waning moments of the game. That T.J. Watt is recovering from surgery due to a collapsed lung. That receiver Calvin Austin III was out, further depleting the wide receiving corps. That behemoth tight end Darnell Washington broke his arm in the first half. That most of the Steelers’ secondary was on the injury report.
And still, Sunday was one of the most inexcusable losses of the Mike Tomlin era. Pittsburgh fell to a previously three-win Browns team (technically still eligible for the No. 1 pick in the draft) by a score of 13–6 in a game that could have clinched an AFC North title and knocked the Ravens out of contention. Now, Pittsburgh has to host the same Ravens team that put up 41 points against the Packers on Saturday without Lamar Jackson. Jackson, too, will have another week to heal from a back contusion and potentially make an appearance in this winner-go-home contest.
So ends the brief honeymoon Tomlin had enjoyed through a stretch of three wins after a tumultuous blowout loss to the Bills in Week 13, able to clap back at everyone who questioned his unquestioned status as the team’s coach of tenure with wins over the flailing Ravens, Dolphins and Lions, that first win over Baltimore aided by the controversial overturning of an Isaiah Likely touchdown that necessitated testimony from an MIT metaphysics expert to legitimize.
After that first Ravens game, Aaron Rodgers implored the media—but really the world at large and anyone who dared challenge the plan—to “Shut the hell up for a week.” He ended up getting a little longer than seven days thanks to a Lions game in which Pittsburgh also benefitted from a late touchdown getting taken off the board.
In reality, Pittsburgh is now showing what it looks like stripped of all reasonable excuses. This is a defense built to tilt the balance of a game that surrendered points on both of Cleveland’s initial scripted drives. This is an offense that—we were told—was one quarterback away from carrying this defensive advantage into a legitimate postseason run, that went four-and-out and gained zero yards on its penultimate drive before gaining three yards on its final four plays inside the red zone with a chance to win it (I will note in the interest of fairness that the referees missed an egregious pass interference call on Marquez Valdes-Scantling on the game’s final play, as the receiver was prevented from raising his arms toward the ball). The same offense was painfully limited Sunday due to the high volume of additional resources devoted to slowing down Myles Garrett. While the notion that Pittsburgh lost because it was trying to muddy Garrett’s path to the quarterback specifically is ridiculous, the game plan was so heavily focused on removing Garrett that Cleveland’s star pass rusher suggested the Steelers were more concerned with preventing him from the sack record than winning the game. Tomlin actually had to respond to this after the game.
And this is a coach who opted to punt on a fourth-and-5 at the Cleveland 46-yard line and fourth-and-6 at the Pittsburgh 47-yard line in the final quarter while trailing. If you believe the computer processes that calculate odds based on going for it in those situations, Tomlin laid a roughly 10% chance of winning on the table by opting to play a familiar brand of football (namely, hoping his defense would emerge with some outlier turnover and rescue the offense again). That’s in the fourth quarter alone.
While we’re at it, let’s bring up Metcalf. The more we’re learning about the altercation that got him suspended for this game and the next one, the more it seems like the Steelers had some kind of idea that Metcalf could have an issue with this specific individual, as he did a year ago while a member of the Seahawks. I’m not going to place this under the umbrella of a “coaching” responsibility, but we cannot simultaneously prop up the Steelers’ mythos while having it counterweighted by so many unforced errors. Failing to keep a player emotionally level in the presence of a familiar heckler isn’t just an individual issue.
CBS research noted after the game that, in the Tomlin era, the Steelers are 0-4-1 in their past five games against teams that are at least eight games under .500. To have that last loss occur in a contest in which the opponent was quarterbacked by a rookie fifth-round pick whose offensive line was in complete tatters is unforgivable.
Regardless of what happens next, it’s important to note how little of this is truly conditional—as you continue parsing qualifiers—and how much of it is Pittsburgh’s milieu now.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Why Sunday Was One of the Most Inexcusable Losses of the Mike Tomlin Era.
