Mike Tomlin’s formula for winning this season always had such little room for error. Winning games while being outgained made for a cute storyline for a while, but Najee Harris spoke the most prophetic words of the season three weeks ago in Cleveland.
“If we keep playing this type of football, how long is that [expletive] going to last?”
Not long, Najee.
He uttered those words moments after the Steelers had fallen to 6-4 at the hands of a rookie quarterback making his second career start. That got offensive coordinator Matt Canada fired, but not much has changed.
Since then the Steelers are 1-2, and on Thursday night they lost to a quarterback making his third NFL start. They also made some dubious NFL history in the process.
NFL Network reported Friday morning the Steelers are the first team with a winning record to lose back-to-back games to opponents that were eight games under .500.
The NFL came into existence in 1920, and it’s hard to imagine another team doing the same in the next 100 years.
Tomlin has put so much pressure on his defense to deliver week in and week out that it’s surprising it took this long for the dam to break. The Steelers have been starting linebackers the past few weeks who weren’t even on the 53-man roster a month ago. They’ve played with backup safeties for most of the second half of the season, too.
Even the Cardinals and Patriots, the dregs of the NFL, found ways to exploit the holes Tomlin and his staff haven’t been able to patch.
They threw to their tight ends and running backs to get favorable matchups against inside linebacker Mykal Walker, who was signed off the street in late October. Even after he was beaten for two touchdowns in the first 20 minutes of play Thursday night, Tomlin kept running him out there.
Why, you ask?
Because there is no one else left after Cole Holcomb and Kwon Alexander suffered season-ending injuries last month.
“You know we’re minus some people in there and we’re trying to find the correct mix,” Tomlin said after the game.
“We’re asking guys to get on a moving train and asking them to play at a high level, but we need that,” captain Cam Heyward said. “We can’t run away from it. Hopefully we can be better because of it.”
You could almost hear the resignation in their voices.
The fact that New England did it was a gut punch. The Patriots are the worst offensive team in the NFL. They failed to cross the 30-yard line in Sunday’s 6-0 home loss to the Chargers and had scored 13 points combined in their previous three games.
They had 21 with five minutes to go before halftime against the Steelers.
The defense deserves to be bashed for its performance on Thursday night, but at least there is a reason for their failures. Even so, eight times in 11 games this season they’ve allowed 22 points or fewer, including Thursday night when they pitched a shutout in the second half.
The offense is another story altogether. Dispatching Canada rid the Steelers of their biggest problem, but they are still running his offense.
Remember when Tomlin said the Steelers ran out of plays against the Bengals at home in the 2021 season? Ben Roethlisberger threw to Harris well short of the sticks on fourth down in that game.
On Thursday night, on a fourth-and-2 near midfield, they did the opposite. They simply chucked it deep down the field and hoped for the best.
Not being able to devise a play to get two yards over two downs might be worse than what transpired in the debacle against the Bengals two years ago.
The Steelers still have four games remaining to change what seems like an inevitable end to the 2023 season. If they can’t, it will be yet another late-season collapse for Tomlin.
Last season’s miraculous second half will be all but a memory — and an aberration.
— In 2018, the Steelers were 7-2-1, but they lost four of their final six games and missed the playoffs.
— In 2019, they were 8-5 and lost their final three games to miss out on the postseason again.
— In 2020, they lost five of their final six, including a home playoff loss to the Browns in an AFC wild-card game.
— And don’t forget about the 2021 season. They were 4-5 over their final nine games, including a 21-point loss to the Chiefs in the playoffs. The Bengals beat them by 31 and the Chiefs by 26 late in the regular season.
This season is careening in the same direction, and it feels like the franchise is at a crossroads. Team president Art Rooney II has to decide in the coming weeks if Tomlin will get a contract extension. If the answer is no, there is zero reason to have him coach as a lame duck in 2024.
