Steelers' Mike Tomlin bluntly sums up embarrassing Christmas Day loss to Chiefs
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The Pittsburgh Steelers are slumping at the wrong time, as they have now lost three games in a row and lost their grip on the top spot in the AFC North. The latest loss in that three-game slide was a 29-10 blowout at home at the hands of the Kansas City Chiefs on Christmas Day.
The Steelers kept the game close for a while, but the Chiefs eventually ripped off back-to-back touchdowns to put the game out of reach and allow the Chiefs to coast to their 15th win of the season in dominant fashion. After the game, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin didn’t hold back about his team’s performance, according to ESPN’s Brooke Pryor.
“That sucked, to be blunt,” Tomlin said, per Pryor. “Not the type of ball we want to play and really kind of eerily similar to our last performance in that we’re not doing the fundamental things well enough.”
With this loss and the dominant win by the Baltimore Ravens over the Houston Texans on Wednesday, the Steelers are looking more and more like a wild card team in the AFC. The Ravens will take home the AFC North crown with a win next week against the Cleveland Browns, so the Steelers better get ready to go on the road for wild card weekend.
Steelers need to get back on track before playoffs start
The Pittsburgh Steelers once looked like one of the best teams in the AFC, and they had seemed to add a little bit of spice to their usual formula of grinding their way into the playoffs.
On top of their elite defense, the Steelers were capable of getting some explosive plays downfield in the passing game with George Pickens and Mike Williams on the outside. Russell Wilson is willing to launch the ball down the field at any time, which gave those two guys plenty of chances to make big plays.
Over the last three weeks, the Steelers’ flaws against the true contenders in the league have been exposed. They don’t run the ball efficiently enough, and it’s difficult to live in such a volatile style against some of the top defenses in the NFL. On the other side of the ball, the Steelers still have the talent to make things difficult for opposing offenses, but their scheme is somewhat vanilla and doesn’t do enough to trouble some of the elite quarterbacks in the league.
These flaws were on full display against the Eagles, Ravens and Chiefs over the last three weeks, and the Steelers lost all three of those matchups by a combined 50 points. They were competitive for stretches of those games, but it’s clear at this point that Mike Tomlin and company are a step below them.
Now, the Steelers must wait and see if they get some help from the Browns next weekend. If not, they will have to figure some of these problems out on the road in the playoffs.
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