PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – As he said after the game, Mike Tomlin said again on Monday that changes are coming to the team. Tomlin also discussed some former player criticism, his confidence and why he didn't go for a long field goal late against the Colts Saturday.
Tomlin said he's excited to get to practice on Tuesday, the first of the week, to break down some of the challenges. He said he would potentially make position changes, but wouldn't elaborate on them saying he needs the time in practice to see who deserves those opportunities.
He said they are going to attack the opportunities with a pithy comment about how they are not going to be helpless, rather helpful. He added they are coming at it with a can-do attitude. This after he admits this team screws up the simplest things.
"We haven't developed in some ways that we would like to," Tomlin said. "Fundamentally poor might be an exaggeration, but it also in some ways is accurate. There are December levels of execution and then there are September levels of execution-five penalties from a unit is September-like. That's going to slow you down in December when you are trying to score and keep pace."
"We are going to continue to work every day."
Tomlin said he believes the players understand the urgency of their situation, but it doesn't mean they will execute the plan.
"I think that's one of the beautiful and challenging things of our league," Tomlin said. "It's every week in this league. One week you are drinking wine and the next you are squashing grapes. Obviously, we squashed a lot of grapes of late. I'm interested in a little wine."
Big Ben and others
Asked his message to the team with all of the outside noise from not just fans or media, but former Steelers players like Ben Roethlisberger critical of the team.
"Nobody outside of our locker room is going to make a play, so we better focus our energies on those inside the locker room and their level of readiness," Tomlin said.
"This is professional football. What we do gets analyzed. If you've been in this business any length of time, you know and understand that. Hopefully you embrace that. The competitor in you better embrace that."
"It's not about what we say at this juncture. It's not about what anybody says at this juncture. The road is getting narrow. What you do when you step in stadiums speaks a hell of a lot more than what comes out of your mouth."
No FG
Even one of Tomlin's most ardent defenders, NFL Network's Rich Eisen, sounded stunned when punted instead of attempting a 56-yard field goal, trailing by 11 with 3:21 to play in the third quarter.
"On the play before, I wanted to be aggressive and take a shot down the field," Tomlin said. "That wasn't afforded to us. Then I wanted to check the ball down and we didn't. We threw the ball out of bounds and didn't improve our field goal positioning."
"With our defense leaking the way it was leaking, I wanted to maintain a posture where we protected them as opposed to putting them in harms way. If you miss a long field goal, the defense is working on a short field. I just didn't feel like we were positioned to expose them in that way."
"Under normal circumstances, as you guys know, routinely we don't mind challenging our defense and putting them in challenging circumstances. Given the attrition that had transpired, particularly at the safety position, I thought it was more prudent, given the amount of time left in play, to try and work them on a long field and protect the defense."
Confident
Tomlin said 51 years of life, gives him confidence in himself, but notes he can't transfer that to others.
Steelers will practice Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week due to the 4:30p kick on Saturday.
