Recapping Mike Tomlin’s Week 2 Press Conference
Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin holds his weekly press conferences every Tuesday. Each week, we will take a glimpse at what stood out from coach’s comments about the previous week and heading into the Steelers next game.
The main story coming out of the Minnesota Vikings game was a need for improvement. The Steelers are still fighting off the penalty bug following Week 2, but Coach Tomlin feels they’re making progress.
We were still highly penalized but we were less penalized than we were in Week One. Particularly some of the penalties that are troublesome from a coach perspective. The post-play penalties for example. We were highly penalized in that area in the opener. We improved in that area dramatically and that’s reasonable to expect. It’s also reasonable to expect us to continue to improve on some of the end thing plays we’re getting called on. Holding and so forth. Whether it’s on defense or offense. We’ll continue to work to develop skills relative to our position. Hands, eyes and feet relative to our position. We believe that if we continue to focus on that in preparation that the penalties will continue to come down. That’s our intentions. That was the case a week ago.
Many fans felt the running game took a hit in Week 1 against the Browns, and didn’t do much against a stout Vikings defense. Coach Tomlin shares his thoughts:
I thought we took a significant step in terms of our run game. Not being highly penalized or not being as highly penalized like we were in Cleveland, it allowed us to maintain more balance in terms of the number of runs that we were able to call. We were able to get Le’Veon [Bell] a number of touches. I thought the only thing that our run game lacked was the splash play. The 25-yard run or the 35-yard run. That turns an 80-something yard day for him to a 120-something yard day for him.
So, we’ll continue, I’m sure that will come not only for him but for us. A large element of that is continuing to ensure our blocking on the perimeter. We’re doing a great job of getting hats on hats with our big people. We need to continue to grow in terms of identifying the people that we need to get blocked based on schemes on the perimeter and doing a good job of making sure that we have hats on hats so that the six and eight yard runs have potential to be a 35-yard run and so forth. That’s an area focusing on potential area need of growth as we put forward in this week.
Another major storyline coming out of the Vikings game is that for a second straight week, all-time franchise sacks leader James Harrison didn’t see the field… except this time, instead of four snaps, he saw zero. The media was hot on coach’s trail to ask him what gives with Harrison’s playing time as of late:
Is he dropping or are other guys ascending? [Anthony] Chickillo was able to start. Chickillo produced two sacks. We respect those contributions. T.J. [Watt] got hurt in Week Two. We wanted to leave the hot hands in there, Chickillo being that hot hand.
We appreciate James. We know what James is capable of. James will ready himself. There will be a time in the season where we’ll call on his services and he’ll deliver and deliver in a big way, much like he did in the latter part of 2016. In the meantime, we’re going to continue to roll people and play and play guys that we see fit and not do a real good job of maybe describing our mindset or outlining their intentions because part of it is gamesmanship and part of it will define itself as we move forward.
And of course, we needed to hear more on Chickillo’s growth, or lack thereof!
Actually, he hasn’t grown. He shrunk. That’s my joke of the week.
It started with shaping his body to look like a 3-4 outside linebacker. Then there’s probably the most significant element of it which I didn’t mention first, and I should have – he’s a college defensive lineman that acclimated himself to special teams linebacker play. That’s the most significant element of his growth and development because he doesn’t give himself an opportunity to develop as a defender or a pass rusher per say, if he doesn’t make himself useful.
Over the course of his career here, he’s made himself useful as a special teamer, in particularly one who’s transitioned himself from a college defensive lineman who played very little special teams, and that’s allowed him time to grow in other areas and probably the most significant area of the Chickillo discussion.
Chickillo isn’t the only young player receiving playing time over a veteran who has been with the Steelers for years. Recently, first-year cornerback Mike Hilton has made an impact with the team. On Sunday, Hilton took another step forward, seeing more snaps than veteran CB William Gay. The question is, why?
We don’t try to overanalyze it. We try to put guys in a position to make plays and when we do and when they do, we acknowledge it. That’s what we’ve done throughout this process with him in particular. We’ve given him an opportunity to make plays. He’s largely made those plays and he’s ascending in his role within our group because of it.
Speaking of special teams and young Steelers, Tyler Matakevich had a huge play, breaking up a would-be pass play on a punt fake.
Tomlin diagrams the play:
It was good fundamentals by Tyler [Matakevich] and good planning and coaching by [special teams coordinator] Danny Smith. You never can anticipate those types of things. You know that they exist, but being fundamentally sound collectively, and that’s why I mentioned Danny Smith, but also being fundamentally sound individually, and that’s why Tyler deserved credit, allows you to stop those plays.
A number of players sat out or left the field on Sunday against the Vikings. The outlook for them to return appears great according to the Steelers coach. Alejandro’s Villanueva and Marcus Gilbert both left the game due to heat and illness related issues. Their back, Chris Hubbard, had a solid showing, as pointed out during the press conference:
I’m extremely confident in his abilities whether it’s the multiple offensive line positions that he plays – right and left tackle. He’s also center-capable. You’ve seen that already this preseason, and obviously the work that he does for us as a situational tight end, it’s just good to have a versatile guy like Hubb available to us.
Tomlin doesn’t anticipate any issues moving forward with Villanueva’s work this week. He also envisions no problems with the rest of the players who popped up on last week’s injury report. When asked if some of those players have an opportunity to play in Chicago this weekend, the overall news was positive.
[Watt] does – Stephon Tuitt as well, Vance McDonald as well, J.J. Wilcox as well, Marcus Gilbert as well. All of those guys have a chance to play. I’m not ready to characterize anybody as out at this juncture.
Finally, a sticking point for many Tomlin critics has been “playing down” to “lesser” opponents on the road. Coach would not entertain the question, brushing it off by simply stating “We’ve played one road game. We’ve played one home game. I’m not ready to acknowledge that.”
