A culture change may be necessary after the Steelers loss to the Jaguars
The Pittsburgh Steelers crashed out of the playoffs with a stunning defeat at the hands of the Jacksonville Jaguars. Blake Bortles and company were underdogs heading into the contest, despite their comfortable win at Heinz Field earlier in the season. However, the Jags put on a clinic on offense, moving down the field with ease to put 38 points on the board, while Telvin Smith added another touchdown following a fumble from Ben Roethlisberger.
Even though he made two mistakes that proved to be costly to his team, the 35-year-old Roethlisberger produced an outstanding display of passing to keep the Steelers in the game. Ben threw for 469 yards and five touchdowns over the course of the contest, with Antonio Brown finding the end zone twice despite battling through a calf injury.
If Steelers supporters were told before the game that their side would score 42 points then a blowout victory could well be believed. Their abject defensive display ended that notion, allowing a team that mustered 10 points against the Buffalo Bills a week earlier, to run up and down the field on them without obstruction.
Mike Tomlin spoke before the Green Bay Packers game about a future duel with the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship game. Those thoughts were echoed by Mike Mitchell and Le’Veon Bell in the build-up to the regular season matchup with the Patriots, and into the Divisional Round of the playoffs. Their misfire of messages now looks foolish, as the Steelers must watch the remainder of the postseason unfold from home as their bitter rivals attempt to join the franchise by matching their six Super Bowl wins.
The Patriots eased past the Tennessee Titans in their Divisional Round game and are looking like the best option to use amongst bookmakers using free bets from Champion Bets, as Bill Belichick’s men are favorites to win back-to-back crowns. Furthermore, the Steelers’ failure throws Tomlin under the spotlight. This year’s iteration of the Steelers arguably had the strongest roster in the NFL, featuring All-Pro caliber players at nearly every position.
Tomlin himself claimed that Pittsburgh should win the Vince Lombardi trophy this season. However, his team failed to do so.
It wasn’t the first time Tomlin’s team fell short. After inheriting the reins from Bill Cowher in 2007, Tomlin had an excellent start to his playoff record, winning five out of his opening seven matches, including Super Bowl XLIII. Pittsburgh also came close to adding another title, only to be edged out by the Packers in Super Bowl XLV in Dallas due to Aaron Rodgers’ brilliance and other miscues.
Since then, Pittsburgh has had a 3-5 record, including first-round exits at the hands of Tim Tebow, Joe Flacco and now Blake Bortles. Too often the Steelers have underwhelmed against an inferior opponent and that does not restrict itself to just the playoffs. Tomlin has long been criticized for playing down to bad teams, and especially so on the road. The Steelers may have fixed their road woes this season, but two losses to the Jaguars leave a bad taste in the mouth of his most vocal critics. Although Tomlin’s team finished with a 13-3 record, an overtime loss on the road to a poor Chicago Bears team back in Week 3 may have cost them the one seed. (This is, of course, overlooking the controversial Jesse James touchdown replay call against the Patriots.)
Following their defeat to the Jaguars, the Steelers have once again been accused of looking past an “inferior” opponent in Doug Marrone’s Jaguars as highlighted by the comments of Tomlin along with Bell and Mitchell. That signals that the culture has to change in Pittsburgh… or perhaps to a further extreme, the firing of Mike Tomlin and/or members of his coaching staff. For his positive qualities, the perception is that Tomlin has issues keeping his team focused.
Before last season’s AFC title game, during a postgame speech in the locker room, the Steelers head coach did not realize Antonio Brown was filming him on Facebook Live. His comments became “chalkboard motivation” for the Patriots following the incident, and it caused Tomlin to answer questions about his team’s discipline.
That was before eventually being soundly defeated by the Patriots in Foxborough a week later.
This season, the Steelers focus appeared to be securing the top seed of the playoffs and getting over the hump of beating the New England Patriots. Although the team and fans will still feel cheated by the loss (I’m one of them that hasn’t gotten over it) the controversy of Jesse James would-be game-winning touchdown, and Roethlisberger’s subsequent interception, will haunt them for a long time. Instead of playing the Tennessee Titans in the Divisional Round, the Steelers ended up in a rematch with the Jaguars. Their lack of focus was evident as the visitors raced to a 21-point lead, an amount which was too much to overcome despite the (mostly) excellent play of the offense.
There have been too many of these incidents of this under Tomlin’s tenure. Is he at fault? Or is it a product of the modern era, rife with player’s comments instantly made available via social media?
Steelers fans will be the first ones to say:
Bill Belichick and the Patriots would never have this problem.
At least on the surface, it does appear that Belichick’s teams are better prepared and don’t have the same “looking down” or “looking past” opponents problem as the Steelers do. In that regard, Coach T has to change his mantra in the locker room or the team may be forced to change it for him: meaning, it may be time for the Steelers to move on in order to get the best out of a talented roster who’s window for a seventh Lombardi trophy is starting to grow smaller with each game played.
