Mike Tomlin was not afraid to acknowledge the Steelers’ recent failures in the postseason while also making sure to say their seven-year drought is more about him than his current team.
He also thinks the Steelers, who limp into a wild card playoff game Saturday night in Baltimore, don’t need to have their confidence restored for the meeting despite finishing the regular season with four consecutive defeats for the first time since 1999.
Nonetheless, the Steelers (10-7) are heavy underdogs to lose their sixth consecutive playoff game and extend the drought to eight years when they play the Ravens (11-6) for second time in three games and third in the past nine.
“What you mentioned is my story; it’s not this collective’s story,” Tomlin said when asked about the playoff drought. “Many of these guys involved do not tote those bags. I happily tote those bags, but it’s not something I’m going to project on the collective.”
Only three players on the 53-man roster — defensive end Cam Heyward, linebacker T.J. Watt and kicker Chris Boswell — have been a part of the 0 for 5 streak. Watt, who is in his eighth season, is the only one of the three who has never won a playoff game.
The Steelers have allowed an average of 40.1 points in those losses, the most recent coming last season in Buffalo 31-17.
“For us, it’s not about being in the tournament,” Tomlin said Monday at his weekly news conference. “It’s not about dreaming about the next month. It’s not about pouting over the last month. It’s about this week.
“It’s important we take the lessons learned from the past month. Unfortunately, you probably learn more when there’s failure, and obviously we’ve experienced some of that.”
But if negative playoff trends are an issue, so, too, are the positive: The Steelers are 10-2 lifetime in the postseason against division opponents. Three of those victories are against the Ravens, including one in Baltimore.
And if more trends are necessary to restore confidence, the Steelers have won eight of the past 10 meetings with the Ravens, including four of the past five in Baltimore.
“I don’t know that it needs to be restored,” Tomlin said. “I just think we’ve been in too many battles and we’ve had too much success to be fragile in that way. We certainly can hate our recent performances and the outcome of those recent performances, but I don’t think it’s reflected in terms of how we feel about ourselves or our ability to make plays or engineer victory.”
As for the run-heavy game plan against the Bengals, Tomlin said the decision to scrap what worked in Cincinnati in the first meeting — when the Steelers put up their highest point (44) and yardage (520) totals in six years — was about “playing to a personality.”
Other than the two-minute drill at the end of the half, the Steelers ran on each of the 12 first downs until it was 19-7 in the fourth quarter. At that point, Russell Wilson, who threw for 414 yards and three touchdowns in Cincinnati, had completed just 5 of 12 attempts for 51 yards.
“We had an agenda in that game and that oftentimes are the things that your balance — a personality you value along with a specific agenda in an effort to create an environment that’s conducive to winning a game,” Tomlin said.
“It’s about playing to a personality that we prescribe to engineer victory, to possess the ball. And a component of possessing the ball is not only time but managing risk. And there’s less risk with running the football than throwing it.”
First Published: January 6, 2025, 7:05 p.m.
Updated: January 7, 2025, 7:38 p.m.
