t was only eleven days ago that the Pittsburgh Steelers were 4-1, had a 2.5 game lead in the AFC North, and were heading to Cincinnati on a Thursday night to play the Bengals in a game where they were favored by a not insignificant margin.
Fast forward to today, and they are 4-3, a mere half-game up in the division, and have allowed a combined 68 points in the last two games to the Cincinnati Bengals and now the Green Bay Packers. On deck, they have the 7-1 Indianapolis Colts, the 5-3 Los Angeles Chargers, and a rematch with the Bengals. In other words, this team could easily be staring down the barrel of a five-game losing streak.
Yesterday’s game in primetime against the Packers started well enough, if you ignore the fact that the Steelers’ offense stopped functioning inside the Green Bay 40 yard-line (see Chris Boswell’s three first-half field goals from the Packers’ 38, 32, and 29 yard-lines). They were able to score a touchdown with less than a minute to go in the half, as Aaron Rodgers found DK Metcalf on a two-yard slant route to make their first-half total be 16 points.
The Packers, outside of one touchdown drive, did not move the ball all that well in the first half. They had three three-and-outs and two missed field goals, only putting up seven points in the opening thirty minutes. With the Steelers heading into the locker room with a 16-7 lead and getting the ball to start the second half, I was cautiously optimistic that they could pull off the small upset.
The opening drive of the second half did not go well. Faced with a third-and-eight, though, Aaron Rodgers drew the Packers’ defensive line offsides. Seeing that he had a free play, he threw a deep ball to Roman Wilson, which fell harmlessly incomplete. Fine…it would be third-and-three and another attempt at getting the first down. Except the flag was never thrown. Rodgers was incensed. Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth—the broadcast team for Sunday Night Football on NBC—were baffled. The fans in the stadium were stunned. How was the defender not penalized? Did my eyes deceive me?
Replays confirmed that the pass rusher was in the neutral zone before the ball was snapped. Oh well. They missed a call. Shit happens. Little did we know that that would be a turning point.
The Steelers punted the ball to the Packers. Facing a three-and-out themselves, Jordan Love heaved a pass off his back foot with pressure in his face, a lob that miraculously fell right to Tucker Kraft, who ran 59 yards and likely ended DeShon Elliott’s season in the process. That is when I knew the game was over.
The Packers would score on that drive. And the next one. And the next one. And the next one (albeit a field goal). And the next one (another field goal). The only possession they had in the second half on which they did not score was their final time holding the ball, which ended with a Jordan Love kneel down. The Steelers allowed 28 points in the second half on five drives (excluding the abbreviated final drive). They also allowed Love to complete TWENTY-consecutive passes, a testament to their disruptiveness (or lack thereof) as a unit. They only scored nine points of their own, six of which came when they were down 35-19 with just over two minutes left in the contest—effectively a garbage-time score. With 3:59 left in the game, the Steelers’ second-half offense had run 18 plays for a measly 32 yards.
In summary, the offense was bad, the defense was even worse, and Chris Boswell is one of the greatest kickers the game has ever seen. Let us take more of a large scale look at this shitshow, though.
Prior to the Steelers’ failure to recover their onside kick and the Packers’ subsequent running out of the clock, the Steelers’ defense had faced nineteen drives in the previous seven quarters. They forced four punts, allowed 870 yards, seven touchdowns, and eight field goals. That is a 79% scoring rate, a 37% touchdown rate, and almost 46 yards per drive. That is completely unsustainable, especially considering the fact that they did not force a single turnover in that span. In fact, the defense has not forced a turnover since they were playing at Croke Park in Dublin against the Minnesota Vikings.
Four quarterbacks have thrown for season-high yardage marks against the Steelers’ defense in the last four games, with Carson Wentz passing for 350 in Dublin, Cleveland’s Dillon Gabriel amassing 221, Joe Flacco throwing for 341 after being a Bengal for only eight days, and then Jordan Love’s 360 yards last night.
Bear in mind that this is the league’s highest-paid defense. They were, as of October 25th (before yesterday’s clusterfuck), 28th in yards allowed per game (374.7), 31st in pass yards allowed per game (258.8), 18th in rushing yards allowed per game (115.8), and 19th in points allowed per game (23.3). All of those numbers, except rushing yards, will have worsened.
How can anyone defend this? How does Teryl Austin still have a job? Shit, how does Mike Tomlin still have a job? His fingerprints are all over this defense. “Well he has never had a losing season”. You know what else he has not had? A playoff win in almost a decade!
I acknowledge that some of the teams that Tomlin has led to .500 or better records have had no business being as good as they were, but there is also something to be said for having good teams that get shit on every single year when they play even moderately competitive opponents.
Maybe my argument for moving on from Tomlin is not fair—I do not know—but at some point, trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different results? That…is the definition of idiocy.