It's time to wrap up our weeklong review of Mike Tomlin's challenge failures over the past two seasons. During this series I've covered eight of the nine challenges from Tomlin that were upheld, and today we'll review the final one over the past two years, followed by a synopsis and final thoughts on the subject.
Here’s how this is going to work: I’m going to break down each challenge play and 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.
Dec. 16, 2018: Steelers vs. Patriots, 17-10 Win
Second Quarter
The Steelers had an early 14-7 lead with a strong defensive showing outside of one blown play against Tom Brady. After a forced punt, Patriots special-teamer Jonathan Jones jumped cleanly into the end zone and threw the ball in the air, but it took a second leap and toss from Rex Burkhead to finally save the ball from a touchback.
But Tomlin thought Burkhead's toe might've touched the line during his leap and challenged the downed call. CBS had the perfect angle to show the play and it looked conclusive that he never touched the line:
Decision: Bad challenge
This challenge looked avoidable with the provided view. It didn't have a huge impact on the game considering the Steelers lost only a first-half timeout and they won anyway. But it still appeared that Tomlin didn't need to challenge it as the provided angles were pretty clear that Burkhead made a solid play.
Review
Now that each challenge has been reviewed in full, we can compile all the decisions and the factors that played into them.
Steelers vs. Jaguars 2017 - reasonable challenge, lost game.
Steelers vs. Jaguars 2017 - bad challenge, lost game.
Steelers at Chiefs 2017 - blown call, won game.
Steelers at Bengals 2017 - reasonable challenge, won game.
Steelers at Browns 2018 - blown call, tie game.
Steelers vs. Ravens 2018 - reasonable challenge, lost game.
Steelers at Bengals 2018 - reasonable challenge, won game.
Steelers vs. Chargers 2018 - bad challenge, lost game.
Steelers vs. Patriots 2018 - bad challenge, won game.
In the games of the nine challenges, the Steelers were 4-3-1. Four of the challenges were reasonable, two of them were blown calls and three of them were bad challenges. That means only a third of his challenges were poor decisions and two-thirds of them had solid merit.
And from the three bad challenges, only two of them resulted in lost timeouts during the second half of a loss, but it's very hard to draw a straight line from those decisions to a major factor in those losses.
The ultimate finding in this weeklong project is that there is no denying that Tomlin had bad luck in the challenges, but there is no major problem in his decision making process. There will be assistance in the form of Teryl Austin to help with challenges, but it won't help if referee Al Riveron continues to generally disagree with calls that involve the Steelers.
MORE CARTER’S CLASSROOM
July 18: Tomlin's challenge woes, Part 4
July 17: Tomlin’s challenge woes, Part 3
July 16: Tomlin’s challenge woes, Part 2
July 15: Tomlin’s challenge woes, Part 1
