Steelers Now
After the Pittsburgh Steelers defense was decimated once again by the Green Bay Packers on Sunday, head coach Mike Tomlin promised that he would examine the team’s defensive schematics, in addition to evaluating the performance of his players in the 35-25 loss.
“We all have to own it,” Tomlin said. “Certainly, you start with the schematics because that’s the leadership component of it, a certainly we’ll be looking at everything that we’re doing, man, because some of these problems are somewhat repetitive. We’re not getting better fast enough.”
After two days to examine the issues presented by the Packers on Sunday, when the Steelers gave up 360 yards passing and three touchdowns to Jordan Love and company, including 245 yards after the catch — 128 by tight end Tucker Kraft — Tomlin has decided that the schematics of his team’s defense were not the issue.
Tomlin said that he will not replace defensive coordinator Teryl Austin, and defended his overall body of work over four seasons with the team, while acknowledging that the 2025 results have not been up to par.
In terms of the problem, Tomlin highlighted two big plays the defense gave up in the third quarter in third-and-long situations. One was a 59-yard catch and run by Kraft over DeShon Elliott. The other was a 33-yarder to Christian Watson, who got behind Juan Thornhill and Brandin Echols.
Those two plays converted third and long situations where a stop would have forced a punt and turned them into red zone opportunities that Green Bay converted into touchdowns.
“We certainly need to be better in third down than we’ve been, but it doesn’t necessarily mean dramatic changes in terms of schematics and things of that nature.
“If you look at those two plays, on the 60-yard play, the quarterback was hit as he let it go, and so it’s details that are usually the difference when it’s a millisecond. And on the other play, the roughly 35-yard play, he got outside the pocket on us and extended (the play), and we’ve certainly got to do a better job of keeping him constricted in the pocket and getting two guys in the catch point down on the grass.
“That’s one thing that we didn’t do in either circumstance. We play a lot of the man-free concepts and usually gives us an opportunity to get two guys at the ball down the grass. We didn’t in those instances, and produced field- flipping touchdown-drive-producing plays that really changed the texture of the ball game.”
Nothing Tomlin said there is incorrect. In both of those big plays — which were huge moments of the game — his players were in position to make a play and simply failed to.
On the first play, if Patrick Queen was a hair quicker in defeating his block, Love would have never been able to get off his pass to Kraft. Elliott was in position to make a play on the ball and was unable to.
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