BALTIMORE (93.7 The Fan) – There was no messing around, no looking for reasons or excuses. Mike Tomlin was blunt about why the Steelers suffered a 34-17 loss to the Ravens, the most points they’ve given up to Baltimore since 2017.
“You got to control the run, the line of scrimmage,” Tomlin said. “The turnover game is always significant in matchups like this. We failed in both areas. When you do that. You should expect to lose.”
Steelers gave up 162 yards to Derrick Henry and 220 yards rushing along with a trio of passing touchdowns.
“As a defense we did not stop the run, when you go that, you can’t win the game,” said captain Cam Heyward echoing his head coach. “As a defense, there were too many missed tackles, errors, that’s just a combustion for not winning this game.”
“We’ve got to be more physical especially playing a team like this,” said outside linebacker Alex Highsmith.
Tomlin said you can still win when you don’t control the run game. But in order to do it you have to create a number of splash plays and win the turnover battle in a significant way. They got three balls on the ground, but didn’t get one of them. They also had an interception returned for a touchdown.
“They got a pick six and the rest is history,” Tomlin said.
The Steelers head coach admitted it’s concerning and that they have to ‘get back in the lab’.
“Got to talk about it,” Heyward said about their mistakes and mainly the multiple missed tackles for a second consecutive week. “Coach it up. Practice it, there isn’t a lot of time to practice. We have to own what we did, that’s the only way you get better through this. Starts up front, D-line, we didn’t get our job done today.”
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Heyward said if they don’t own it, it’s going to continue to happen and the competition is only getting tougher.
“There are no sorry teams there,” Heyward said of what they are facing. “It’s about guys being in their gaps. Guys making tackles. Guys knowing their jobs and assignments. As a team, we have to learn from this.”
“We need to start faster,” said captain TJ Watt. “We need to tackle. We need to be gap sound. We have to rely on our brothers in the run defense. We have to do things that make defenses good. We didn’t do that tonight.”
They must improve the simple things and do that without a true practice. They will get together on Sunday, then do some glorified walk-throughs for two days. It’s a hard look in the mirror for a defense without a starting lineman, the second-leading tackle when he left at safety in DeShon Elliott and both starting corners for an unknown amount of time.
Oh, and they are facing Patrick Mahomes and Joe Burrow to finish the regular season.
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