PHILADELPHIA -- "There’s a dysfunction in what we’re putting on the field right now."
This was Cam Heyward, minutes after the Steelers' 35-13 predictable emasculation by the Eagles, the NFL's only perfect team, on this Sunday afternoon at Lincoln Financial Field. And believe it or not, he wasn't speaking of the offense. Or of coordinator non grata Matt Canada. Or of anything straying from the side of the football where he's employed.
But my goodness, what a word.
Dysfunction.
What a precise, pristine word to describe the the chin-deep doo-doo that's engulfing this franchise. Because if we're all being real, if we're doing as Cam further suggested the team itself should do in "exposing all the wounds" that've been sustained through a 2-6 start that has the total offense ranked 28th in the NFL and, not to be outdone, the total defense ranked 29th ... then we'll be face-to-face with the reality that this sum isn't rooted in some random, chaotic occurrences. Or an occasional lack of confidence. Or lousy luck.
Nope. It'll be as Terrell Edmunds bluntly spoke: "Right now, we're just not a good football team."
Mm-hm. Except I'd go way further in that they're an outright bad football team, and that it's not just right now. It's been all season, but for one blissful half in Cincinnati and, worse by far, it's so deep-seated it's increasingly looking like it could linger well into the future.
Barring some seismic, unprecedented act of broader reflection as to how this bottom's been reached.
And in turn, however remote the possibility, an equally seismic, unprecedented change.
Any clue as to where those roads might converge?
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Look, I can analyze in the moment as much as anyone. Besides, it's always seemed to be the preferred method of analysis for most fans and, for that matter, for Mike Tomlin, who’ll invariably rather answer questions about isolated instances than to ever address any trend.
You know his line: "I'm not going to paint with a broad brush."
OK, I'll play along for a bit.
So, how about that scorching secondary, kids?
Oddly, the defense fared well enough against Jalen Hurts and company, right up until Hurts would opt to stop wasting everyone's time and simply let it fly for A.J. Brown:
Oh, man, with Minkah Fitzpatrick in every frame, notably with that mistimed jump on the first.
"They started the game off with a big play that I could’ve made," he'd say. "I should’ve made a play on it. It could’ve been a pick. I get paid to make plays on the ball. I didn’t do that."
Neither did anyone else. Ahkello Witherspoon was burned not once but twice, then benched for James Pierre. Cam Sutton bit too hard forward on another long touchdown. It was as if the Eagles were taking turns embarrassing everyone.
"We were in position," Tomlin would say, and he was right about all of the above three. "We see it with clear eyes. We've got to make those plays. We have to break those balls up or catch them."
How about all those stupid penalties?
Nine flags in all for 60 yards, including three on the offensive line in the first quarter and change. Two were for illegal formation, another for the now-weekly ineligible man downfield.
"It's something we have to clean up," Dan Moore would say. "You never want to put yourself in binds like that, going from first-and-10 to first-and-15. It just puts you in unmanageable situations."
"It's fundamental things," Tomlin would say. "We'll get officials at practice. We'll focus on things that are problematic for us, obviously."
Obviously.
But yeah, he did use the future tense for a problem that's been in place for ... oh, wait, analyzing in the moment.
All right, how about that offense?
There were bona fide bright spots with a season-best 21 first downs, 300 net yards, 70 plays and -- gasp! -- a dozen Kenny Pickett passes that traveled 10-plus yards in the air.
There even was -- double-gasp! -- actual imagination applied from that noted mastermind up in the booth:
Imagine that Canada could call for Chase Claypool to throw a lefty touchdown to Derek Watt, one that tied the score, 7-7, in the opening quarter.
Fine, now imagine that a first-round running back could be, even for a single sequence over an entire NFL career, this pensive in the open field:
I mean, I don't have any more adjectives for that now than when seeing it live. I'm speechless.
And yet, not surprised: Najee Harris carried eight times for 32 yards. It's what he does. There was one exception, an 18-yard burst through a big hole up the middle. But big holes are the exception at this level, and they're found gold for the Steelers.
Meanwhile, Jaylen Warren, the undrafted rookie who's still getting about half the work, carried six times for 50 yards and, even though a bunch of those came on draw plays or third-and-long, the pattern's very much in place where the backup outdoes the starter.
The passing game wasn't a bunch better. Pickett wasn't great, completing 25 of 38 passes for 191 yards, but he also threw a blah interception and absorbed six sacks for minus-40 yards.
And I do mean absorbed:
Along with nearly everyone in front of him, as well, mainly James Daniels skating backward faster than Kris Letang.
What a line.
What an offense.
"We all weren't good today," Tomlin would say to this one. "I'll just assess it that way."
I could keep going. I didn't even get to George Pickens being targeted only three times while refs robbed him of two catches. Or Devin Bush's zero solo tackles and two assists. Or the shankapotomus doing the punting.
But do take notice that, in every isolated instance above, Tomlin had something to say.
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I asked Tomlin a non-isolated-instance question, well aware after covering his full tenure that it wouldn't be welcomed but feeling it was both fair and timely since he won't be available again through the bye week: Did he envision altering or augmenting his approach to coaching this team in any way within what's now uncharted waters for both him and the Steelers?
Rather than responding, he asked back what I considered to be uncharted waters.
I replied simply, "2-6."
To which he came back, "I've probably been there before."
He has, of course. The 2013 team that started out 0-4 in London would then go 2-2. I was there, in London and for all of it.
He knew that wasn't what I was asking, and he seized on the technicality -- there's no comparing this situation to 2013, which had a star-studded roster that ran into a rough stretch -- to avoid answering at all.
So, a couple minutes later, I came knocking again:
And the answer: "No. We're going to build plans to win games on the weekends that we play, I promise you."
A little later, he was asked after a third consecutive loss if he'd be open to changes in the coaching staff, a plain attempt to get him to talk about Canada, he shook his head and replied: "We're 2-6, guys. I'm not going to answer that question every week."
That's fine. That's his right as head coach, both to handle questions as he wishes and to lead his team as he wishes.
But the rest of us, similarly, have the right to view this situation through our own eyes, and I'm here to share a stance -- for the first time, I might add -- that I don't know if he's the one to carry this franchise through this next phase.
Particularly not with the approach/attitude that the principal goal is "to win games on the weekends that we play." Because that's just not how it works with rebuilding, even in the NFL, where that happens far faster than in other leagues because of the prominence of free agency.
This head coach, this management team all the way up to Art Rooney II, have a lot they need to learn. And while there isn't exactly some great overflow of young talent ready to push into veterans' spots, replacing a Larry Ogunjobi with a DeMarvin Leal once both are healthy would make so much more sense regardless of the outcome that Sunday. Or calling more ambitious offensive plays that allow more of a flexing of skills. Or throwing more to Pickens. Or dialing up more blitzes on defense.
Or bringing refs to practice, for crying out loud.
Some of these players, even baby-faced rookies, are practically begging for it.
“We’ve gotta keep our head up," Najee was saying at his stall, where he'd still be sitting long after most everyone else had clear out. "It’s rough right now. We lack a lot of stuff. We lack a lot of experience. We lack a lot of discipline, accountability. We lack a lot.”
"We're not detailed," Pickett would say, almost echoing the sentiment. "Guys need to know what they're doing. We need to study more. I don't think we study enough as a group. There's too many penalties and stuff like that which we can control. For that to happen, there's no excuse for it. We have to figure that out and get it right."
Discipline. Studying. Accountability.
Tell me, please, where those bucks stop in every football setting in the free world.
Next, tell me how that'll be addressed by prioritizing scoring one more point than the Saints a couple weeks from now.
Pickett wasn't done, adding with more of an edge than I've heard from him in the NFL, "Something has to change. It’s insane to keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect something different. We’ve been having these problems all year. That has to get changed. That has to get fixed. We need to look each other in the eyes and get it turned around. Coaches can say whatever they want. Everyone else in the media and fans can say what they want. But at the end of the day, it’s down to us. So we have to figure it out.”
No, they don't. They just need to follow the one who does figure it out.
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Accountability occurs in countless ways in an NFL environment, few of which become public. Nor should that be expected. I don’t, for example, expect Tomlin to trash Canada, or even to suggest his job's in jeopardy. But when the results are as stark as they've been and everyone else is fair game while the head coach only gets irritated when the coordinators or assistants are brought up ... it couldn’t be clearer what the undercurrent is here.
Anyone seen my broad brush?
Oh, here it is:
• As impressive as Tomlin's remarkable longevity and consistency have been, as much respect as he's earned -- in the truest usage of the term -- it’s equally fair, I’d say, to underscore that he's now 12-18-1 in his past 31 games. Lulls happen everywhere, but they'll ideally happen with more of a plan than how to beat the Saints.
• I'm not one of those who's ever believed Tomlin won with Bill Cowher's players, anymore than I'd ever intimate that Mike Sullivan won with Mike Johnston's players in the Penguins' 2016 Stanley Cup run, even though Sullivan took over behind the bench in midseason. At the same time, it's independently inescapable that Tomlin hasn't won a playoff game since January 2017 and that, in the four playoff losses that followed, the Steelers gave up 36, 45, 48 and 42 points.
• In 2021, his final season with a Hall of Fame quarterback, the Steelers went 9-7-1 with a surprising playoff berth, founded mostly on a 38-year old Ben Roethlisberger’s six fourth-quarter comebacks. Tomlin's first season without Ben will also be his first, barring some crazy reversal, with a losing record. Not to mention one in which they've plunged in all phases to across-the-board depths not seen since before Chuck Noll. That's quite the plug that got pulled there.
• Tomlin's coordinators and coaches, almost without fail, don't leave the Steelers for promotions or even lateral moves but, rather, to lesser positions elsewhere or all the way out of football. That tells me as much about the caliber of most of those coaches as it does about the hiring process on South Water Street.
• This might mean the most: Tomlin's been at least an equal partner in all areas of drafting and developing, per his own description during his time sharing that dual role with Kevin Colbert. And if I had to take the seven drafts (exempting this past one) that followed the wonderful one in 2014 that was headlined by Ryan Shazier and Stephon Tuitt, I'd be able cull but a few picks I'd safely label as high-impact players: T.J. Watt, a couple years of Bud Dupree, the version of James Conner that's now in Phoenix, the version of Javon Hargrave who wrecked the Steelers here on this day, a bit of rookie fun with JuJu Smith-Schuster and ... and ... who, Diontae Johnson? Never forget that the coach and the GM of this operation are essentially one and the same.
Broad enough?
l'd written before this season that it'd be fascinating to see how Tomlin handles this challenge. I'd written before this game that I'm not sure he's the one for it.
I'm writing now that I'm a little less sure.
DEJAN KOVACEVIC / DKPS
National anthem, Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Live file
• Scoreboard
• Schedule
• Standings
• Statistics
THE INJURIES
Hurt in the game: CB James Pierre (foot) went down late in the fourth quarter. Chris Halicke has a full report.
The inactives: K Chris Boswell (groin), DT Larry Ogunjobi (knee), CB Levi Wallace (shoulder), CB Josh Jackson (hamstring), QB Mason Rudolph, G Kendrick Green, LB Mark Robinson
THE SCHEDULE
It's the bye week. Rejoice. There's a 45-minute media access period Monday, 1:15 p.m., on the South Side, then practices Tuesday and Wednesday before the players break off for the bye.
THE MULTIMEDIA
THE CONTENT
Visit our team page for everything from our football staff of Halicke, Ramon Foster, Matt Williamson and myself.
