PITTSBURGH — After the Pittsburgh Steelers surrendered at least 30 points for the fourth time in seven games, coach Mike Tomlin defended defensive coordinator Teryl Austin on Tuesday.
“I’ve known Teryl a long time,” Tomlin said. “He’s very capable. He’s very thorough. I’ve largely been pleased with his work, but certainly he and I are not pleased with where we are right now from a defensive unit perspective, and so we’re just going to keep working.”
Tomlin also said he’s not taking over sole defensive playcalling duties after the 35-25 loss to the Green Bay Packers on Sunday night.
“That’s not on the table as we sit here today,” Tomlin said. “We just got to keep doing what we’re doing and do it better.”
Despite preseason declarations from Tomlin that the Steelers’ defense could do “historic things,” the highest-paid unit in the league has repeatedly fallen short of expectations.
Not only did Pittsburgh allow a season-high 360 passing yards, three touchdown strikes and a streak of 20 consecutive completions from Packers quarterback Jordan Love on Sunday, but four consecutive quarterbacks — Love, Joe Flacco, Dillon Gabriel and Carson Wentz — have produced season-high yardage totals against the Steelers.
Now Pittsburgh enters a Week 9 matchup against a 7-1 Indianapolis Colts team with the NFL’s most prolific offense, which is averaging a league-leading 33.8 points and 385.3 yards per game. Meanwhile, the Steelers rank 32nd in passing yards per game (273.3), 30th in total yards allowed (386), 24th in third-down conversion percentage (41.84%) and 22nd in points per game (25.0).
“We make no excuses about how or why we fall short,” Tomlin said. “Our job is to perform at a high level, and we haven’t done that. … Seven games or whatever doesn’t make a season. We certainly got more in front of us and more opportunities to write our story, whether it’s individuals, whether it’s a component of our team or whether it’s our team in general. I think that’s our general mindset.”
The Steelers will be without starting strong safety DeShon Elliott, who hyperextended his knee in the second half of Sunday’s loss and is “week-to-week.” To replace him, they are working out several veteran safeties, Tomlin said, including Vonn Bell and Eddie Jackson. The team also signed hard-hitting safety Jabrill Peppers earlier in the season when Elliott was sidelined with another knee injury.
Tomlin also didn’t rule out exploring trade options.
“We’re always open for business, particularly as we get close to the trade deadline,” Tomlin said. “We’re always buyers.”
The Steelers were successful in shutting down the Packers in the first half of Sunday night’s loss, keeping Love and the offense from converting any of their four third downs as Pittsburgh built a 16-7 halftime lead. In the second half, however, Green Bay converted 5 of 8 opportunities, including a 59-yard completion to tight end Tucker Kraft and a 33-yard completion to Christian Watson — both in the third quarter.
“I didn’t think we did a good enough job recovering from that and finding our footing as a collective football group — offense, defense and special teams — in the effort to make the necessary plays over the course of the last 15 minutes to win the game,” Tomlin said.
Numerous players said the poor play in the second half snowballed and affected effort and attitudes late in the game.
“If I’m being completely honest, I don’t feel like the effort was there,” safety Juan Thornhill said Monday, adding that the defensive unit has been addressing that issue openly this week. “We got to have that conversation. We got to let everybody know that effort should not be something that we should be paying attention to. You always need to play hard.”
Tomlin said he didn’t see a “lack of fight” on the game film as it related to effort.
“I’m talking about fight in terms of playmaking,” Tomlin said. “You don’t get credit for trying hard. We’re not in the ‘try hard’ business. Our fight is about production and producing, and we certainly didn’t produce enough plays over the last 30 minutes of the game, particularly in any of the phases to secure victory.”
Tomlin said most of the issues on defense can’t truly be resolved until the team takes the field at Acrisure Stadium on Sunday.
“You can spend a lot of time talking about your ills, but the true fixes come in stadiums,” Tomlin said. “… There’s certainly procedurally things that you go about doing that fixes it, but the fix happens in stadiums and the rest of it is just talk.”
