Steelers lack discipline
PITTSBURGH — It took four games and 44 penalties accepted against the Pittsburgh Steelers for coach Mike Tomlin to realize his team is undisciplined.
For the math challenged, that’s a clean average of 11 infractions per game and, while it doesn’t break them down into the even cleaner pre-snap or post-play penalties, it should have been as obvious to Tomlin as it was to the rest of us that this Steelers team lacks the discipline to play clean football.
It started in the preseason, when new safety Mike Mitchell drew a personal foul for trying to behead an opponent who had stepped out of bounds.
It kept pace when Troy Polamalu and Mitchell were called for personal fouls against Cleveland in the opener. Of course, there were penalties of some sort in road games at Baltimore and Carolina.
But the problem manifested itself in Sunday’s disappointing, disheartening, disgusting 27-24 home loss that lifted Tampa Bay from the depths of winlessness. It was classic come-from-ahead stupidity that shouldn’t, couldn’t nor wouldn’t have happened had the coach realized this undisciplined thing a week ago or a month ago.
Thirteen penalties worth 125 yards were all it took for Tomlin to come up with this gem of an instant analysis: “We are not going to win close football games being penalized in the manner in which we’ve been penalized over the first month of the season. It’s unacceptable. It’s inexcusable. In a nutshell, that is the story of the outcome of the performance. There are some positive things and there are some negative things anytime you play football. But the defining factor in determining the outcome of that football game is that we were too highly penalized. It’s ridiculous.”
Which makes you want to just say … Dah! What was your first clue?
The problem, though, is that Tomlin isn’t disciplined as a coach, either. His clock management has been questioned since he first came to Pittsburgh and it, too, reared its head against the Buccaneers.
If Tomlin were disciplined, he wouldn’t have blown a timeout on his way to blowing a challenge. It was at the end of a Tampa pass play in the third quarter that covered 40 yards down the left sideline. Rookie Mike Evans made the catch and got both feet down inbounds. Tomlin called a timeout, but threw his challenge flag before anyone in his coaching booth had a chance to see a slow-motion replay.
A disciplined coach would have waited to allow his assistants to see whether he should have challenged the play or not.
By the way, that play came right after the Steelers gave the Bucs a choice on which penalty they wanted to accept (they chose Polamalu’s offside over someone else’s) and it came two plays before Cam Heyward was called for unsportsmanlike conduct on Doug Martin’s game-tying touchdown run.
By then, of course, the dye already had been cast. It will be interesting to see what Tomlin does to rein in his undisciplined players. Strange as it might sound, there is still time to get this right. It would certainly help if the coach would start being a bit more disciplined himself.
Sports reporter Mike Ciarochi may be reached online at mciarochi@heraldstandard.com.