PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – It's not quite the pair of games against Tennessee and Minnesota last year-giving up 423 yards rushing, however the Steelers defense run stopping regression over the last two weeks has been a tough reminder.
It's by far the worst two game stretch of the season giving up 361 yards and narrowing that down, allowing 333 yards in the last six quarters against the Ravens and Falcons.
Mike Tomlin said they were worn down Sunday against Baltimore. It's something outside linebacker TJ Watt dismissed. What else could it be? An older defensive line getting pushed around late in games.
"Oftentimes, when you're not successful it's both the schematics and it's performance, and I'd say it was both," Tomlin said. "I thought they won the war of attrition as the game wore on. I thought the pile fell the direction that they desired to. So, what could be second-and-eight was second-and-six. You do that consecutively, what could be third-and-four is third-and-two, and those downs are played out differently in the National Football League. I think over the course of time, I thought that was the state of it, increasingly so."
"We can do a better job of getting them in position to minimize that pile, we've got to come off blocks a little better and we've got to understand the weight of possession-down ball when you're playing someone that's playing the attrition game. You win a third-down-and-seven— we had a third-down-and-seven that we had a break down, they had a 25-yard gain, the drive extended, they ran the ball some more, they end up getting a field goal on that drive. We win that
third-and-seven, we're on the sideline. Those attrition plays that we discussed, whether or not that pile is falling forward and things of that nature, doesn't exist."
I guess we could summarize that explanation to being pushed around. The Steelers defense bluntly has been bullied the last two weeks. Tomlin had a reason for that too. It's the style of play of both the Ravens and Falcons, those teams are third and fourth in the league in rushing yards.
"We've played two run-centric teams with quarterback mobility," Tomlin said. "So, you play two teams like that, you're going to have somebody ringing up yards on you in the running game. If we played two teams that featured the passing game, you could be talking about six quarters of passing yards."
"So, I'm not desensitized to it, but I just understand it's the nature of the style of ball we've been playing of late, and we've got another game that could be very similar this week. It does have our attention."
The Panthers are 13th in rush yards, bur ran for 223 yards against Seattle. D'Onta Foreman and Chuba Hubbard each ran for 74 yards, even QB Sam Darnold had 30 yards rushing against the Seahawks Sunday.
Tomlin later would say something that could be the most accurate.
"The ball snaps, you kick butt, or you get your butt kicked," Tomlin said. "Football is a legitimate humble man's game. Those that participate in it, particularly at this level, playing and coaching, there's not a lot of room for arrogance, man, because everybody gets their butt kicked every now and then in this thing. Whether it's plays or sequences, hopefully not games, but it's a game for the legitimate humble. We don't talk about that enough."
Back to practice are the Steelers, all but mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. Are they going to find the fight against a team that was reborn after firing their head coach and a game out of first in the NFC South?
Or should we expect more 'losing the war of attrition', 'lack of minimizing the pile', not 'understanding weighted down ball' or 'getting their butt kicked' in Charlotte?
Recent results would tell you the answer is 'B'.
