Mike Tomlin is a great coach by many measures, but one of the biggest gripes by his detractors is his recent record on challenges. His past nine challenge reviews have resulted in the official's call being upheld.
This week is dedicated to a closer look at all nine of those calls from the 2017 and 2018 seasons. Yesterday, I broke down the first two calls that occurred against the Jaguars, a game the Steelers lost 30-9 in 2017. Today we look at two calls from close games they won later that season.
Here’s how this is going to work: I’m going to break down each challenge play and to explain how the challenge came about, the result of why the call was upheld and grade Tomlin’s decision.
Considering he won none of these challenges, the grades per each challenge are between “Bad challenge” if Tomlin had little to no merit on the challenge, “Reasonable” if it was a tough call and the challenge made sense, or “Blown call” if you can definitively see it was a bad call by the official on the review.
Oct. 15, 2017: Steelers at Chiefs, Won 19-13
Second quarter
The Steelers were up 9-3 in the middle of the second quarter thanks to a touchdown by Le'Veon Bell and a safety on Alex Smith. The defense was having a strong day but the offense was coming off a horrible performance against the Jaguars the previous week, and after an interception from Ben Roethlisberger, the defense held and forced a punt which the Chiefs downed at the Steelers' 1-yard line.
Akeem Hicks made a very close play to keep the ball from a touchback. But once the replay was shown on the board, Tomlin threw his challenge flag arguing that Hicks' toe was on the goal line.
During the review, Jim Nantz thought his foot stayed off the line, but Tony Romo took a closer look and saw that Hicks' foot did break the line and that some turf from the goal line was kicked up. Despite this, the call was upheld:
Decision: Blown call
This was the first of Tomlin's nine missed calls for which you could make a strong argument that referee Al Riveron got wrong. Calls like that can be difficult with how close they get, but when you see Hicks' shoe break the line from that angle and see that it kicked up part of the goal line, it makes sense why Tomlin challenged it.
The lost challenge didn't cost the Steelers anything other than a first half timeout in a game that they would eventually win because their defense had a strong day and Antonio Brown pulled off a miracle at the end.
Dec. 4, 2017: Steelers at Bengals, Won 23-20
Third Quarter
After losing Ryan Shazier to a horrible injury, the Steelers were fighting their way back into a must-win division game in their hunt for homefield advantage. Down 20-10, the defense appeared to force a fumble from A.J. Green on a slant over the middle. They were also missing Joe Haden, so having to play Artie Burns and Cameron Sutton put the secondary in a tough spot.
But the play was ruled as an incomplete pass and that Green never established possession of the ball for there to have been a fumble. Possessing all three timeouts and seeing a chance to get his offense back on the field in scoring position, Tomlin challenged:
The live view made it seem that Green took several steps with the ball while absorbing hits from Burns and L.J. Fort. And on the review you could see that Green had control of the ball for at least four backward steps.
But this was just two weeks before the infamous Jesse James touchdown catch reversal that caused an entire rule change on how catches are reviewed. The NFL had been wildly inconsistent with what was and was not a catch, so it made sense for Tomlin to gamble on that inconsistency working in his favor:
Decision: Reasonable
It wasn't a bad call because Green, according to the rule at the time, had not made a "football move" that would have completed the process of the catch. Burns' hand didn't jar the ball loose until after multiple steps, but it still was before Green could perform any acts to break his backward momentum.
The lost timeout in the second half wasn't too detrimental in the Steelers' comeback. The offense would tie the game at 20 with less than four minutes to go. The defense, which shut out the Bengals in the second half, forced a quick punt right back to the Steelers. They took the remaining time to get in field goal range, wind the clock down and watch Chris Boswell make a game winning field goal as time expired.
We're four challenges through Tomlin's past nine misses and have a mixed bag of two reasonable challenges, one bad challenge and one blown call. Tomorrow, I'll highlight the first two challenges Tomlin made in 2018.
MORE CARTER’S CLASSROOM
July 15: Tomlin's challenge woes, Part 1
July 12: Chickillo’s the failsafe at OLB
July 11: Tight end problem must be solved
July 10: Why the Steelers kept Adeniyi
