Coming off a game in which his team had season lows in total yards (163), rushing yards (35) and first downs (12), it seemed curious that among Mike Tomlin’s opening remarks in his weekly press conference is that the offense “did what was necessary” against the Tennessee Titans.
Uh, really?
However, it didn’t take long for him to speak a more discernible truth about what will be necessary when the Steelers play in Kansas City on Sunday against the hottest team in the NFL: The 19 points they scored against the Titans aren’t going to be nearly enough against the Chiefs, who have won a league-best seven in a row.
“I don’t think it’s realistic to think that that’s going to be enough to get out of the stadium with a victory this time around,” Tomlin said Tuesday.
That, though, has been the norm more than the exception this season for the Steelers, who haven’t scored more than 19 points in half their games and are averaging nearly six points fewer (20.8) than they did last season (26.0).
What’s more, their running game — or what there was of it — has disappeared because they have fallen behind by a combined score of 91-19 in the first halves of the past four games.
On top of that, part of the reason for the Chiefs’ comeback from a 3-4 start is their defense hasn’t allowed more than 14 points in five of their past six games.
“Three of the four games that they lost, the opponent has scored more than 30 points,” Tomlin said. “That’s a blueprint, if you will, of a traditional way of winning the game. Obviously, the games write themselves, but we’d better come in being prepared to score points.”
There is nothing traditional about the way the Steelers (7-6-1) are winning games. And there is little to suggest they can go into Arrowhead Stadium prepared to score points. The only time they topped 30 points this season was in the 41-37 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers, when they scored 27 points in the fourth quarter.
But a lack of scoring is not something that has afflicted just the Steelers. It’s happening all around the league.
Overall scoring has dropped from 24.8 points per game to 22.8 this season. Five teams averaged more than 30 points per game in 2020; this season there are none. Only four teams failed to average fewer than 20 points per game last season; this year there are eight.
Complicating matters for the Steelers is their defense has allowed 118 points in the past three games on the road.
“We haven’t played very well on the road, I’m acknowledging that,” Tomlin said. “We’re not worried about that, to be quite honest with you. We can spend a lot of time lining up and identifying our worries. We’re excited about the opportunity that we have in front of us, the things that we’ve done to position ourselves for it, and equally as important, what are we going to do in preparation.”
No seller’s remorse
Outside linebacker Melvin Ingram has done for the Chiefs what he was doing for the Steelers before he was traded to Kansas City — very little.
Ingram has just one sack and three quarterback hits in 229 snaps for the Chiefs, which is about the same impact he had in six games with the Steelers when he had one sack and six QB hits in 246 snaps.
Ingram asked to be traded because he felt his role was misrepresented to him when he signed a one-year, $4 million contract with the Steelers in free agency. The Steelers got a sixth-round pick in the 2022 draft in exchange for Ingram.
“To be quite honest with you and blunt, Melvin no longer wanted to be here, and for us, we prefer volunteers as opposed to hostages,” Tomlin said. “We believe that’s a formula that really allows us to come together in ways that you can’t measure, to do the things that we were able to do last week, to smile collectively in the face of adversity and do what’s required to get out of stadiums with necessary wins.”
Faith in Harvin
Do not expect Tomlin to replace rookie punter Pressley Harvin III, who has delivered more shanks and wayward out-of-bounds punts than anything to help the Steelers dig out of poor field position. At least, it doesn’t sound that way.
Harvin ranks 30th among punters with at least 25 punts with a 43.3-yard average and leads the league with 14 punts out of bounds.
It happened on the first possession against the Titans when a wayward punt from his own 43 went 27 yards out of bounds. Two series later, from his own 21, Harvin punted 32 yards to the Titans 47, leading to a field goal and a chorus of boos from the home crowd.
Harvin atoned with punts of 50, 51 and 54 yards, but his failure to come up with the type of punts that earned him the Ray Guy award at Georgia Tech and made him a seventh-round draft choice has been mystifying.
“He and we smile in the face of adversity and we send him back out there,” Tomlin said when asked how he can help Harvin develop more consistency. “We’re going into Game 14 or so, this guy hadn’t played 14 games at Georgia Tech, so he’s facing the challenges that most rookies face that are significant contributors from wire-to-wire like he is. There’s going to be some ups and downs during the course of the journey.
“We’re committed to him and his talents. We’ll keep sending him out there. We expect him to work his way through it, and we’ll expect him to smile in the face of adversity that his rookie season is presenting to him and grow from it.”
Gerry Dulac: gdulac@post-gazette.com and Twitter @gerrydulac.
First Published: December 21, 2021, 9:49 p.m.