The Pittsburgh Steelers needed a change heading into the Carolina Panthers game on the road. Mike Tomlin took a calculated risk putting his team in full pads and it paid off with a physical win against the Panthers, 24-16. Tomlin and his coaches had successfully played spoiler, but he managed to dissolve any good will during the postgame press conference.
Mike Tomlin on Marcus Allen's unsportsmanlike penalty: "It's 3 points." On a follow-up, he said he didn't really see what happened to draw the flag.
— Brian Batko (@BrianBatko) December 18, 2022
After a 21-play drive to open the third quarter which put the Steelers up 21-7, they kicked off to the Panthers in firm control of the game. The Panthers started to mount a drive, but then after reaching the Steelers 32-yard line, the defense rose up. They stuffed a first down run by D’Onta Foreman and then sacked Sam Darnold on consecutive plays by Alex Highsmith and Cam Heyward, pushing the Panthers out of field goal range.
“We could have played smarter,” Tomlin stated. “Penalties are not how we choose to live, especially the 15-yard variety. We have opportunities to learn from that and it’s good to learn with a W.”
Mike Tomlin discusses a taunting penalty with Diontae Johnson (18). Karl Roser / Pittsburgh Steelers
Momentum was firmly on the Steelers side when Marcus Allen decided to inexplicably head over to the Panthers sideline and taunt them. It was the second consecutive series that a taunting penalty was called on the 5-8 Steelers. After completing a pass inside the Carolina 10-yard line, Diontae Johnson drew the first taunting penalty on the black and gold just moments before. The mistake by Allen opened the door for the Panthers and luckily, they didn’t walk through it. At the postgame press conference, Tomlin admitted he didn’t see the play and poo pooed its effect on the potential outcome of the game:
"It’s three points,” Tomlin stated. “I don’t know it was in a dead period, we were making adjustments on the sideline, so I didn’t have eyes on it. I don’t know if any of us had eyes on it.”
Heat of the moment taunting penalties are stupid. Johnson’s penalty shouldn’t be condoned, but it is at least understandable. A special teams player running over to the opponent’s sideline after the defense just made a huge stop is indicative of a coaching staff that isn’t paying attention to detail, and a team full of undisciplined players that seem to think a losing record entitles them to brag during the game. The Steelers are a 5-8 team and not one coach is watching the special teams run out onto the field? Does that include special teams coach Danny Smith who has come under fire recently?
It is one thing for the head coach to be talking to the defense, it is quite another for Tomlin to admit he didn’t see the play and claim no one on his staff saw it. Even if it’s true, it speaks to the undeserved arrogance in his job security that he would admit it at the postgame press conference. A 21-7 game with an exhausted defense that was about to have run back on the field and try to prevent another long drive was thwarted by one of the dumbest penalties in football. A potential blowout was turned into a one score nail biter because a marginal special teams player thought he could get away with that behavior.
Mitch Trubisky (10) caps a 21-play drive with a QB sneak. Karl Roser/Pittsburgh Steelers
Tomlin deserves a lot of credit for pushing buttons during the week to take a team that was lousy against the run last week at home against the Baltimore Ravens and completely shutdown the Panthers running attack. The defense was ready to play and the game plan to protect Mitch Trubisky from himself by running the ball down the Panthers throat was well executed. But it is all for naught when you walk into the press conference and admit you weren’t paying attention to a key moment of the game.
Tomlin can’t get out of his own way at this point. Imagine if any other coach had said that at a press conference. Bill Belichick would dominate the national media discourse for the next week about how he is overrated and just a product of Tom Brady if he had said it. God forbid, it was Mike McCarthy, it would be leading debate shows until the Cowboys won the Super Bowl, or until Skip Bayless no longer gets paid to appear on opinion shows, maybe both.
The postgame comment will probably be ignored outside of Pittsburgh and Tomlin will receive credit for pushing all the right buttons during the visit to Carolina. If he had managed to push the mute button during his answer to that question, it really would have been something to celebrate.
What do you think, Steeler Nation? Is Tomlin’s admission to missing the play that allowed the Panthers back into the game inexcusable? Please comment below or on my Twitter @thebubbasq.
