PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – “We got kicked in the teeth today in a lot of ways.”
Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin’s assessment of their 30-7 opening day loss to San Francisco on Sunday. He added the game unfolded just as the Niners wanted it to.
“It was a failure in all areas. We’ve got to coach better. We’ve got to play better. We got to prepare them better. They’ve got to play better. We got to go back to the drawing board.”
Steelers allowed scores on the first four San Francisco possessions and only a late touchdown in the first half gave them any hope in this matchup. Other than that series, it was pretty much controlled by 49ers with 391 total yards, 188 rushing and allowing just 239 yards, some of that in garbage time, and forced a couple of turnovers.
“I don’t know,” said Steelers linebacker TJ Watt. “I don’t know if there’s one thing that I can say right now. You guys watched the preseason. We were able to start fast in all three phases of the game, and today was definitely not like that. Even to be able to stop the bleeding coming out of halftime and have them have a two-play, 75-yard drive is not acceptable at all.”
Christian McCaffery hit a 65-yard touchdown run to make it 27-7 seconds into the third quarter to take any hope away. Brock Purdy threw for a pair of touchdowns to Brandon Aiyuk, eight receptions on eight targets for 129 yards.
“They did everything we thought they were going to do,” said safety Minkah Fitzpatrick. “They didn’t do nothing special. They were playing San Francisco-football, Shanahan-football. We lost weighty downs early. They ran the ball early, had big plays running the ball and throwing the ball. It was a lack of execution, for sure.”
“They were doing what they wanted to do. We didn’t stop nothing.”
“Winning on first down, trying to put those guys on more predictable play-calling,” said corner Patrick Peterson, who gave up a pair of touchdowns to Aiyuk. “It’s a collective. All of just on all three spots on the defense have to be better. It wasn’t a good enough effort.”
Offensively, no better. After five touchdowns in five possessions in the preseason, five three-and-outs to begin the regular season.
“I think San Fran’s starting defense is a little bit better than some teams in the preseason we played,” said QB Kenny Pickett, who finished 31-46, 232 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions. “They’re a good team, but at the end of the day, we didn’t secure anywhere near at the level that we need to or want to. Have to get a lot better.”
“Lack of execution, especially early,” said center Mason Cole. “Start the game with five three-and-outs, not converting on third down. Just bad ball by us and lack of execution. Put our defense in bad spots, kept our defense on the field. Just bad ball.”
“They were just the better team today.”
“We have to be a lot better in so many ways,” said linebacker Alex Highsmith. “They are a great team and they came in and played like it and we didn’t. We will see how we respond this week.”
Cleveland, after a blowout win against the division-favorite Bengals, at Acrisure Stadium next Monday night.