Steelers Blog

Coach Tomlin’s Post-Game Comments

Coach Tomlin: It was good to finish on a positive note here in 2012, particularly the way we knuckled-up in the second half as a team. We were short in some areas. We had five healthy offensive linemen and two healthy corners. Those guys knuckled-up and delivered. It’s a good winning note for us and a good team effort. On the injury front, Keenan Lewis re-injured his knee. He’s getting it examined. The same thing for [Brett] Keisel, it’s probably an MCL but we’re getting that examined. [David] DeCastro has a stinger and Kelvin Beachum had a concussion.

Re: CB Cortez Allen stepping up the last few weeks:
He really hasn’t had an option. He’s playing every snap on defense and he’s a young guy who’s arrow is pointed up. He did a nice job getting some turnovers for us. Of course, we haven’t gotten as many of those as we’d like. He has helped us, not only today but last week as well.

Re: Team’s performance in the second half:
We just continued to play hard and put forth effort. We got a few turnovers there, capitalized, put seven points on the board as opposed to field goals. It was critical for us.

Can you describe the touchdown to WR Plaxico Burress, and do you think he has a future with this team?
We’ll deal with next year next year. I appreciate his efforts today. Obviously, he’s an easy target in that area. We knew that he would have an opportunity to contribute there. We focused a lot of our efforts there. It was good for him to make that play for us.

How is QB Ben Roethlisberger feeling?
Fine.

Re: Thoughts about this group of players and what you went through this season:
Obviously, we’ve experienced some professional disappointment in the big picture. But in the small picture we had a game to play today and a game to prepare for today and win. I liked the efforts. I’ll wrap the bow around 2012 a little bit tomorrow.

Can that be momentum, using this win to move forward?
No, because this year is this year and next year is next year. But it is good to finish on a positive note and to finish with the arrow pointed up. Hopefully, for individuals it can be something to build upon going into the offseason.

Miller leads Terrible Towel Twirl

Pittsburgh-based rapper Mac Miller led the Terrible Towel Twirl before the start of the Steelers-Browns game, getting the Heinz Field crowd fired up.

“I had a decision today to either play wideout or do the Terrible Towel Twirl and my knee isn’t what it used to be, so I am doing the Towel Twirl,” joked Miller. “It’s awesome. I am a life-long Steelers fan, watching games my whole life.”

Miller, who grew up in Point Breeze section of the city and went to Allderdice High School, released his first album Blue Slide Park in Nov. 2011, and it hit debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. His second album, Watching Movies with the Sound Off, will be released in May, 2013.

“I am very fired up,” said Miller. “It’s a lot of fun. I have only been to five Steelers games my whole life. It’s fun. It’s all about the Steelers today.”

Mark and Cory Christofel, winners of this week’s “My Pittsburgh Steelers” fan contest, enjoyed pregame warm-ups with their gamily and also took part in the Terrible Towel Twirl before the game.

Steelers host Play 60 pregame

The Steelers participated in the NFL’s Play 60 initiative during Sunday’s pregame activities. The NFL Play 60 initiative is an ongoing commitment to the health and wellness of the children. Local youths were on the field during the National Anthem, as well as the coin toss.

Steelers Co-Captains

Dick’s Sporting Goods Co-Captains enjoyed pregame warmups.

Coach Tomlin’s Post-Game Comments

Coach Mike Tomlin Opening
Obviously, not our day and, thus, not our year. Just not enough significant plays at the moments. Sounds like a broken record but reality as we sit here. We accept responsibility for it. On the injury front, we’ve got a number of things. Baron Batch has got a broken arm. Heath Miller has a PCL and MCL injury. Curtis Brown has an Achilles strain. Mike Wallace has got a hamstring. Maurkice Pouncey had an MCL sprain but he was able to finish the game. We’ll take a look at where he is. Just in general, disappointing but I appreciate the efforts of the men. Obviously, just was not enough.

Did the Bengals do anything special up front to confuse the offensive line?
No, it really wasn’t assignments. They were beating us physically some. They’re a good front. I think they’re second in the league in quarterback sacks and for a reason. They have quality rushers. I’ve got to acknowledge that and compliment them in terms of how they were able to rush the passer, particularly in definitive passing downs.

Re: Bengals shutting down the running game in the second half:
They did a nice job. Neither team ran the ball. It was that type of a football game and it was going to be about the significant plays and get-off downs, and they made a few more than we did.

Was QB Ben Roethlisberger improvising on offense? Did that effect the offense?
I wouldn’t characterize it that way. Obviously, it wasn’t effective enough for us to win, I’ll acknowledge that. The things that we aspire to do and the process in which we went about it in the early portions of the season are the same as they are today. Obviously, with different results. We’re not looking to make excuses for those results. They are what they are. We’ve got to coach and play better than we did.

Was the loss disheartening because the offense had chances in the second half?
It’s disheartening because we had chances as a football team.

Was there a bad snap on the missed field goal in the first half?
Yeah, it looked like a bad snap. Of course, it made it difficult to get the ball down. When he did, Shaun [Suisham] was probably too close to the ball and pulled it. It was a low kick because of it and it was tipped because of it. But I think it all started with the snap.

Did you think about punting rather than attempting a field goal at the end of the fourth quarter?
No. We’ve got a great deal of confidence in Shaun and rightfully so. We wanted to give him an opportunity to do the job.

What have you been doing in practice to get better on third-down conversions since you have struggled converting them for most of the year?
For most of the year, we were number one in the league in conversions, offensively. At the very least top five for the better part of the year. So, re-phrase your question for me there.

What has been the issue with third-down conversions the last few weeks?
We just haven’t executed in the manner in which we’d like to.

Re: Decision to dress RB Rashard Mendenhall:
Just like we talked about a week ago, if he came back in the right frame of mind and ready to contribute we’d give him an opportunity. He did so and we did. I thought he was a positive contributor to our efforts today.

Steelers celebrate 40th Anniversary of Immaculate Reception

The Steelers celebrated the 40th Anniversary of the Immaculate Reception at today’s game

Former Steelers players, including Franco Harris who scored the touchdown to give the Steelers their first ever playoff win, were on hand for the celebration.

Bradshaw’s daughter sings anthem

Rachel Bradshaw, daughter of Steelers’ Hall of Fame quarterback Terry Bradshaw, sang the National Anthem prior to the Steelers-Bengals game.

My Pittsburgh Steelers winner

The Dearing Family, winners of My Pittsburgh Steelers fan contest this week, enjoy pregame warmups on the field.

Steelers Co-Captains

This week’s youth football co-captains are ready for the game.

Coach Tomlin’s Post-Game Comments

Opening Comment: It really is simple men. Just not enough of the critical plays in the waning moments of the football game to seize opportunities. I thought we had opportunities. We allowed them to remain in the game and we lost the game because of it. We had a lead, had a punt return and it was going to be good field position and we put the ball on the ground. We had the ball up around midfield at the end of regulation and timeouts and we got dropped for some negative plays and the game went into overtime. Of course, once we got into overtime they made the significant play. Not enough to close it out, unfortunately. We’ll take a look at it tomorrow and move forward. We understand where we are in this thing and the margin for error is zero. If you look at us from an injury standpoint (DeMarcus) Van Dyke separated his shoulder in the game and was unable to return. Emmanuel Sanders had a rib injury and Keenan Lewis had a groin and was unable to return. We’ll assess the injuries as we move forward and be geared toward the readiness of the healthy men and get ready for a real big football game at Heinz Field this weekend.

Normally you greet your players after the game outside of the locker room. Why didn’t you today?
I did. I just did it inside the locker room.

When Antonio Brown let the punt bounce later in the fourth quarter, was he under any kind of direction to do so?
I was down around the line of scrimmage so I couldn’t see the length of the ball and some of those things and how it unfolded. We like to field the ball in the air in those circumstances if we can, I can’t pass judgment on it because I was watching the line of scrimmage. It was fourth and very short and that is where my attention was.

Can you talk about the play of the secondary without Ike Taylor?
I thought they competed, particularly the young guys. We had them in some tough situations. Not enough plays. That can be said not only for them but for our football team. Not enough critical plays, particularly in those moments to secure victory. They made the splash play necessary to secure victory, we didn’t.

Why did you feel the offense wasn’t able to get into any kind of rhythm today?
I wouldn’t necessarily say that. I just didn’t think we took advantage of opportunities when we had them. We made some plays, just not enough.

Steelers notes for Cowboys game

Check out the Steelers notes for this week’s game against the Dallas Cowboys.

Steelers Game Notes

Coach Tomlin’s Post-Game Comments

Coach Mike Tomlin: An unfortunate, poor performance by us, and by that I mean all of us. We coached poorly today, we played poorly today. It’s a shame given the opportunity that was in front of us, but it is what it is. We don’t seek comfort. We accept responsibility for it. Hopefully, we can make corrections and move forward because, regardless of what happens in other stadiums, if we play the way we played today it does not matter. We need to acknowledge that and I think we will. Obviously, today was a failure. We lost situational football. We didn’t convert enough third downs offensively, particularly some short yardage ones. We knew they were good in that area coming into it, but they won those situations regardless and they converted too many on defense. Just a good performance by them, a poor one by us, we accept responsibility for it, we move on.

Did you ever consider going for two after those touchdowns?
No. Until we stopped them it was going to be insignificant. I was holding the two-point plays for that reason and that reason only. Now, we still have them in our hip pocket. Those specialty plays we didn’t want to put on tape unless we had an opportunity to close the gap. As you can see, we didn’t.

Are there any connections between this game and the other games that you have lost when you were expected to win?
I hadn’t thought about it in that way. All I focused on was our poor performance today and it was that.

Since you thought the game was out of reach when you decided against going for two, did you ever give any thought to pulling QB Ben Roethlisberger out of the game?
No. I didn’t say that the game was out of hand. I said that I was going to hold it until I saw signs of us being capable of stopping them.

What factors go into whether or not you keep Roethlisberger in a game when it seems to get out of reach?
We’re competitors, as is he. We’re going to allow competitors to compete.

What did you see out of Roethlisberger today?
Physically, I thought he was fine. Obviously, we’d like to be more productive, but that’s a function of all of our efforts. I appreciate his, but it wasn’t enough today.

Was the reason for putting CB Josh Victorian into the game for CB Curtis Brown due to an injury issue?
It wasn’t an injury issue. We wanted to give Josh an opportunity. They were attacking Curtis some, particularly on third downs. He wasn’t being successful enough. We gave Josh an opportunity.

How will you address the third-down conversion issues?
We’ll do it the way we’ve always done it. We’ll simply go back to work and look at the tape tomorrow. We’ll make an effort to make our corrections. We’ll prepare for our next opportunity, but we’re not going to change the formula in which we address it or prepare. We’re too far down the road for that and it’s not broken. What is broken is our execution and performance here today.

Did Willie Colon injure the same knee that he previously injured?
Yeah, let me go down some of these things. We have some re-injury of existing injuries. Some guys were able to go back. Of course, Willie was not. Ryan Clark fell on his hip again. Emmanuel Sanders, AC joint again. Troy [Polamalu] missed a little bit of time with his Achilles again, but he was able to go back in the game as you were able to see. We’ll take a look at these tomorrow and see if any of it is long lasting but that’s the status of it those injuries here today.

Did you see anything wrong with Roethlisberger, especially early in the game?
I didn’t have any problem with his ability to throw the ball vertically or horizontally or any of those physical things. We just didn’t perform very well today collectively.

On the lateral on the goal line, were you under the impression that the call was going to be overturned?
Not that that was communicated to us, because it was not, but I just didn’t think it was a lateral to be honest with you. We run a lot of those plays. They’re forward passes. I know that the ball hit [David] Paulson in the back or wherever, but I was surprised at first that it was ruled a lateral and then surprised that it wasn’t overturned. But I’ve been surprised before.

Field position was a factor today.
It was a big factor.

Re: What you can do to overcome the tough field position:
We can convert third downs, like I said earlier, and we can stop them, particularly on initial third downs on drives. When they’re winning possession downs, they’re going to control the field position and that’s what happened, particularly in the first of this game. We didn’t convert third downs and they did. Even on drives in which they didn’t score, they converted a couple third downs and they flipped the field. That’s a function of winning possession downs.

Was there any thought they would go for a fake punt when they did?
That’s always a thought but we can’t live in our fears. We had to make a play there and we didn’t, they did and I tip my hat to those guys.

Tatum leads Terrible Towel Twirl

Actor Channing Tatum, who is currently filming the movie “Foxcatcher” in Pittsburgh, led the Terrible Towel Twirl along with the movie’s director, Bennett Miller.

Tatum has been in the city for the last few months, and said has been impressed with the enthusiasm Steelers’ fans have.

“Pulling up to the stadium and watching all of the black and gold flooding toward the epicenter of what is happening today is crazy,” said Tatum. “I have been in the city for two months and I have never seen a city that flies the colors of their city like they do here. Their black and gold is our red, white and blue.”

Tatum did the Terrible Towel Twirl with this week’s “My Pittsburgh Steelers” fan contest winner Theodore M. Broadnax.

Fee sings National Anthem

Kathleen Fee, who is a part of the band Celtic Cross, sang the National Anthem before the Steelers-Chargers game.

Honoring the anniversary of Pearl Harbor

In honor of the 71^st Anniversary of the Attack on Pearl Harbor the US Navy’s VFA-86 Sidewinders stationed out of Lemoore, California did a flyover prior to the start of the Steelers-Chargers game. The Color Guard for the game is from the United State Navy Recruiting District Pittsburgh and the 28^th Infantry Division Army National Guard Band performed on the field pregame.