PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – It was the first subject Mike Tomlin broached in his opening comments during his news conference on Tuesday. The Steelers head coach discussed how stopping the run is a building block for them and it’s failure created a lot of the mistakes we saw against the Bengals in a 33-31 loss Thursday.
Tomlin mentioned they had been good in that area over the last couple of weeks, allowing 70 rushing yards to the Vikings and 65 to the Browns, both wins. While the 142 allowed to the Bengals was Cincinnati’s season high and 86 yards over their season average, Tomlin doesn’t think it was a total breakdown.
“It’s really simple guys,” Tomlin said. “You can have a couple of plays and create a catastrophic day. You had a 25-yard run and a 37-yard run, but that’s all that is required. You get those big runs. They flip the field. They put them in scoring position. They change the trajectory of your strategy, etc.”
“It’s not 60 snaps we are talking about here, but in our business at this level, one or two plays are the difference between having a good day and a catastrophic day.”
When they had the breakdowns, Tomlin said it was in two areas-players getting out of their gaps, which typically, but not limited to, the front six or seven players. In addition to that mistake, they weren’t keeping a net around the defense as Tomlin put it, or limiting the big runs to eight or nine yards.
“That speaks to multi-layers of dysfunction,” Tomlin said.
Because they weren’t able to stop the run, it allowed for shorter down and distance, which he said in turn allowed Joe Flacco to get rid of the ball quicker. That kept the Steelers pressure at bay for all but two times when they came up with a sack.
“We had been trending the right way in that space for a number of weeks, but certainly last week was a setback in that area,” Tomlin said. “I really think it created an environment where we weren’t controlling the game from that perspective.”