These are the things that contenders do not do -- under any circumstance -- once the calendar flips to December.
Among these things were the sophomoric, Saturday-like procedure penalties and the ugly mistakes on defense and special teams that complemented them so well in the worst way.
Contenders don't do this at this time of the season. Count them up: A total of nine penalties for 77 yards that included four of the procedure variety. In Week 13 of the National Football League season. By a seven-win team in contention for a playoff spot.
It simply cannot happen.
"No excuse there," Mike Tomlin said. "I didn't see that in practice, but I did see that in stadium and we own it, for sure."
The comedy of mistakes in this 24-10 loss to the Cardinals at Acrisure Stadium Sunday was something that those who are vying for the first-overall pick in the draft do. Much like something that the 3-10 Cardinals would have done on a typical Sunday. The "quality of play" on the Cardinals front was that of a contender. The roles were reversed on this field on he North Shore.
Consider these five plays, and the explanations that followed:
1. The illegal formation penalty on Dan Moore Jr. enforced at the Steelers 26, negating a nine-yard run from Najee Harris early in the second quarter. It would be the first of two instances where a Steelers tackle was flagged for being "uncovered" on the play, meaning somebody else -- a tight end or receiver -- didn't step up to the line of scrimmage pre-snap.
"Just miscommunication in formation," Moore said. "I'm not really sure what the issue was with that, but we've got to look at the tape. We've got to go in and we're on a short week and just clean stuff up like that. We can't have stuff like that."
(And I thought I got enough of "look at the tape" from Pat Narduzzi over on the Pitt side this season.)
2. Tomlin having to burn a timeout prior to the Steelers' second offensive play of the second half because Chukwuma Okorafor forgot to report in as eligible.
3. The illegal formation penalty on Broderick Jones enforced at the Steelers 29, negating a 14-yard run from Warren on that same drive. Two plays later, Mason Cole rocketed a snap too low to Mitch Trubisky, causing a turnover that Arizona would get a James Conner rushing touchdown off of.
"Just got to -- repetition of everything," Jones said. "Everybody being on the same page and getting the little things corrected. Watch the film and break it down and just continuing to get better."
3. The false start on Diontae Johnson on the drive where Chris Boswell would later miss a 45-yard field goal wide right.
4. The penalty called on the Steelers for having too many men in the huddle ... immediately after Tomlin called a timeout with 3:33 left in the game.
"Just miscommunication, I guess," Mykal Walker said. "I don't know."
5. Not one ... not two ... but three special-teams penalties called on one player: Miles Killebrew, the captain of that unit and the one who is, normally, rock steady in these situations.
"You know, we just can't have penalties on teams. That's just inexcusable," Killebrew said. "We can't do it. I had three of them today, and so we're going to have to watch the film and make sure that doesn't happen again. ... I think that would kind of be a cop out to say that 'it just happens.' I just have to be better. ... It's attention to detail. I'm not going to make any excuses for it. It's one of those things that we can't afford to have, especially in December. We've just got to press on, grind on the film, and press on."
Tomlin would also play off any threat that his team took the 3-10 Cardinals lightly.
"No. We look at ourselves and the quality of our play or the lack thereof. And it wasn't there today," Tomlin said.
That feels hollow in comparison to Jaylen Warren's response to the same topic.
This clip from Warren -- as truthful as it might be -- is frightening at minimum and grotesque at best.
"Maybe, I feel like, we came out and took it lightly, (unlike) we should have," Warren said. "We just can't do that."
And I followed up: Why does he think that happened?
"Maybe their record played a part in it," he replied.
A damning but honest answer from Warren after a damning and reflective loss.
And it happened on both sides of the ball. It's about the oftentimes-emphasized details of the game that need to be refined by the time the calendar flips to December and, especially, considering how tight the AFC currently is with respect to playoff positioning. The Steelers are one of four AFC teams with a 7-5 record, along with the Browns, Colts, and Texans, and the Broncos and Bills are in tow with 6-6 records.
"I wasn't good enough today," Cole said. "I had a few bad snaps, one cost us seven points. We didn't execute, we were too highly penalized. Just bad ball across the board for us. "I've got to be better, we've got to be better. We've got to get this stench off us and get ready to play a game in four days."
The miscommunications on both sides of the ball. The lack of detail. The racked-up penalties. All of those are preseason-level mistakes that should be afterthoughts by the time Week 13 rolls around.
It snowballed on the Steelers in this loss. And, now, the Steelers might not have Kenny Pickett (ankle), Isaac Seumalo (shoulder), or Elandon Roberts (groin) on a short week with the Patriots coming to town for a Thursday game.
Minkah Fitzpatrick broke his left hand in the second quarter, but pressed on and played the second half Sunday with a cast on it. After the game, he expressed the need for the Steelers to play their "best ball."
"I think we've got to go into games like these and realize we have to play our best ball," Fitzpatrick said. "I don't understand why games like this are -- we should be winning by a lot of points, playing great defense, and when we don' play our best ball, that's not the case. They're an NFL team, they get paid too, so they're going to take advantage of us no playing the best ball. Thursday we've got to go out there and focus on us playing our best ball, not worrying about who we're playing, what the record is, who they've got at quarterback, X, Y, Z. We need to focus on us and play our best ball."
They will need a version of that "best ball" Thursday. And beyond.
