PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – It’s not that anything had really changed, but Steelers defensive coordinator Teryl Austin confirmed that he is calling the defensive plays, but head coach Mike Tomlin is heavily involved in the defense.
“It's been the same since I've been in this chair,” Austin said Thursday. “I'm calling it and Mike, if Mike wants to call something, he calls it and that's how we roll. I mean, that's how it's been.”
Austin came to the Steelers as a defensive assistant in 2019 before getting the job as defensive coordinator four years ago. Tomlin and Austin have had many success, but are struggling, especially in the last couple of weeks. But nothing has changed in terms of the involvement of the head coach with the defense.
“Ever since I've been in this position, Mike's part of the defense obviously and he's always been part of it and it's nothing's changed in that regard,” Austin said. “We go through our weeks we plan he's in all the meetings all those things. And so there's really no change in terms of how we work together as a staff and so I don't think that has any bearing on anything you know because Mike has always been involved nothing's changed in this regard.”
Austin said they are going through the process of improving. He looks at what he can do better and tries to communicate to the players what they need to do better. He tries to do that taking emotion out of the conversation and that leads to the issues handling adversity.
“I think one of the things you got to do is you got to be steady,” Austin said. “The game always has ebbs and flows. And what you can't do is ride the rollercoaster of the game. As a coach and as a player, I think the one thing you do is you stay steady throughout. So even when you're doing great, you're not like over the moon. Because that way, when you do bad, you won't be like under the mountain. You know what I mean? And so we just have to be real steady in our approach, real business-like and workman-like in our approach, and just keep grinding away.”
They aren’t doing it by making them run all the time or constantly harping on the bad. Austin said they try to show a few good things. He admitted he needs to be better, that he’s made mistakes. Now he is trying to find the teachable moments to motivate this defense that is being paid as the top defense, but playing as a bottom third.
They know it. They don’t need to turn the radio on to understand, but he said he just needs the players to focus on improvement.
“My concern is with the guys in the building and how I can get our guys to play better,” Austin said. Cuz I care about winning. I don't care if its 50 to 49 or it's 3 to 2. My job is to coach our guys and hold them to less points than the opponent. And that's really all I care and all I'm concerned with is how are our guys doing, how are we performing, how can I help them get better.”