Despite rust, Steelers win, stay perfect
Tomlin not happy with team’s play in thrice-postponed game
PITTSBURGH — Mike Tomlin isn’t one for excuses. Even as COVID-19 wreaked havoc with his team’s schedule, pushing their matchup with the Ravens from Thanksgiving night to middle of the afternoon in the middle of the week in the middle of a pandemic, the longtime Steelers coach refused to reach for one.
So while the Steelers stayed perfect with a disjointed 19-14 win over the undermanned Ravens in the first NFL game on a Wednesday in eight years, their play was anything but. And Tomlin knows it.
“To be bluntly honest, I’m really disappointed in our performance tonight,” he said after the Steelers improved to 11-0. “We did enough to win tonight, that’s all.”
Calling it “junior varsity”-level play, Tomlin seethed in the aftermath, a testament to both how high the bar is set and just how far the Steelers came from clearing it.
Asked about an offense that managed just one touchdown in four trips to the red zone — missed opportunities that allowed the Ravens (6-5) to hang around until the final minutes — Tomlin didn’t offer analysis as much as rage. “Us sucking,” he said.
The Steelers turned it over twice, once on a fourth-down heave into the end zone by Ben Roethlisberger, the other a fumbled punt by Ray-Ray McLoud that set up a 1-yard touchdown plunge by Gus Edwards. They let Ravens backup quarterback Robert Griffin III briefly turn back the clock to his 2012 rookie of the year season and looked at times like a team in the middle of ho-hum midweek practice — which, to be fair, Wednesdays typically are — rather than a showdown with its longtime rivals.
“Obviously we won, but it sure doesn’t feel like it,” said Roethlisberger, whose 1-yard strike to JuJu Smith-Schuster early in the fourth quarter gave the Steelers a 12-point lead they flirted with squandering. “Just not good football. It starts with me. It’s a mental game, it’s been a challenging and draining week but at the end of the day we need to step on the field and play good football.”
The Steelers didn’t for long stretches, though some of the credit goes to a spirited effort from the Ravens. Running onto Heinz Field missing more than a dozen players on the reserve/COVID-19 list, including reigning NFL MVP Lamar Jackson and running backs Mark Ingram and J.K. Dobbins, the Ravens didn’t exactly roll over.
A COVID-19 outbreak among the Ravens forced the NFL to push the game back three times: first from Thanksgiving to Sunday, then from Sunday to Tuesday, and eventually from Tuesday to Wednesday. The teams kicked off in the afternoon to not interfere with NBC’s Christmas special at Rockefeller Center.
Good idea. The fewer eyeballs on this one the better.