Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin held a press conference immediately following the Steelers game. Here’s a breakdown of of the coach’s comments about their performance.

Opening Statement:

You know, tough outcome. But it’s nothing mystical, it’s not something that happened to us, it’s something that we created and we take responsibility for that. We didn’t make enough plays to win the game. We’ve got to make plays and not only at the end of the game, just throughout the game.

Not making enough significant plays, not taking enough of an advantage of opportunities, and we’ve got to look at all aspects of what we’re doing. I have to rectify that, not only what we’re doing [but] what we’ve asked those guys to do, the quality at which we’re doing it, all of the above.

And it’s as simple as that.

You know we’ve got to catch balls we have the opportunity to catch, we have to sustain blocks longer, we have to tackle better, we have to make kicks. Just good fundamental things and we’re not doing it.

So we’re going to continue to work, we’re going to absorb the negativity that comes with our current position. We understand that we created it, it’s our job to fix it.

Ben [Roethlisberger] had a rib injury he was able to come back into the game, nothing else was specifically mentioned. I’ll update you a little later in the week obviously. Questions?

What was the decision to put Ben [Roethlisberger] back in?

You know, he got looked at at halftime and he got treatment and he came back out. We were waiting to see if he was going to be able to come back in and he was. [He] probably could’ve come in a series or so sooner but we were in a rhythm and flow of the game, he was ready to go when he got back out there.

Was he medically cleared by halftime?

He was medically cleared when he got back out there, obviously he wasn’t back out there at the start of the third quarter.

Why did [Darrius] Heyward-Bey come out in that last drive?

Again, we rotate people to keep fresh rushers in so it’s probably just that.

Mike any thoughts about calling a timeout when they got down inside the ten?

Yeah I wanted to always keep a timeout for offense, you guys know I kind of have that mentality about it, and I did, and I wasn’t sure JuJu [Smith-Schuster] was going to get out of bounds on the subsequent possession. [I] just wanted to keep a timeout, [I] thought we had a chance to stop them, [I] wanted to utilize a timeout for the possession downs, third down, fourth down, we used one for the fourth down, to no avail.

Was the field slippery?

The field was slippery for us. It was slippery for them also, so I’m not going to make field conditions an excuse. It was slippery for everyone.

Your kicker Chris Boswell has six missed field goals this season. Are you going to start looking for a new one?

It’s disappointing here today. That’s all I’m going to say on it.

You defense gave up a 75-yard drive at the end of the game. How disappointing is that?

Big time. Big time. I think equally as frustrating is we were on some of these plays. We’re there at the ball. We’re not making plays on the ball. Probably equally as frustrating is we’re not making them, and they are. It’s not like these balls are falling incomplete, so we have some work to do.

You said you want to take a look at everything. What’s that process going to look like?

We’re going to go through our normal processes in terms of readying ourselves to play for the game this upcoming week. There is no self-scouting or anything of that nature. Redemption Sunday is coming, and we better be prepared for it as it is every Sunday.

Given how some of the teams in the playoff picture did ahead of you, how frustrating is it that you missed an opportunity here today?

I’m not really aware of that to be quite honest with you.

On the last drive, who’s decision was it to run the hook and liner play?

Hey, I take responsibility for everything we do both good, bad, indifferent. We’re not getting into the division of labor and things of that nature. That’s not how we function.

How were Stevan Ridley and Jaylen Samuels today?

We didn’t run the ball as well as we’d like, but that’s an 11-man job for our offensive unit. I’ll have more details or further descriptions or contributions probably for you on Tuesday.

Transcript provided by the Pittsburgh Steelers.