PITTSBURGH — When asked after the embarrassing playoff loss to the Cleveland Browns about the four-year string of late-season collapses, Steelers coach Mike Tomlin acknowledged the pattern has been a disappointment and that something has to change.
"I'm not going to maintain status quo and hope that the outcome changes," Tomlin said. "That's the definition of insanity."
For the sake of discussion, it should be noted there are several meanings and applications of the word "insanity." It is both a plea of defense attorneys to describe a person's legal mental state and an expression to describe in a positive and exclamatory sense an event that is particularly unique or extreme, such as, "that is insane."
But it is also a term used to discredit a particular idea, belief or principle, which is what we're talking about here.
Make no mistake, there is something innately wrong with the Steelers. No team that has so much success for the first three quarters of a season can collapse like clockwork on an annual basis as the Steelers have the past three seasons and not have something inherently dysfunctional about them.
Oh, it can happen once, like it did this past season when they lost five of the final six games after an 11-0 start, and be inexplicably explained away as a byproduct of COVID-19, two significant defensive injuries or even a juggled schedule that resulted in a litany of short work weeks late in the season.
And it could happen twice, like it did in 2019 when they lost their final three games to miss the postseason, and call it bad luck due to the loss of a franchise quarterback.
But when it happens three years in a row, as it has since the 2018 season when the Steelers lost four of their final six games to miss the playoffs, there are no more excuses of bad luck, significant injuries or pandemics. Throw in the embarrassing home playoff loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars after a 13-3 season in 2017, and this is more than a disturbing trend. It is a systemic problem.
It is something that goes beyond schemes and play calling, coaching staffs and personnel decisions. It is not about being unable to run the ball or a short-passing game or zone coverages or even clock management. It's not about draft choices or free-agent acquisitions or long-term contracts. It's not anything tangible.
It is about something that festers, something that has become a part of who they are and what they have become. They are a winning team, no doubt. Their record for most of the past three seasons suggest as much. Even without Ben Roethlisberger in 2019, when they used two quarterbacks who had never appeared in an NFL game, they incredibly found a way to win eight times in a 10-game stretch. Then the bottom fell out for the last three games.
Now this.
The Steelers are faced with a two-pronged problem: Identifying what it is that causes these repeated collapses and how to correct it if they can identify it. The process won't be easy.
But here's a good place to start.
Lack of accountability, on and off the field, has become a growing problem for all NFL coaches who deal with million-dollar athletes. That leads to a lack of discipline where players are more interested in stats than game plan, more focused on social-media posts rather than professional decorum. The Steelers have their share of each.
Go back to where this all started. Go back to Le'Veon Bell and Mike Mitchell and their mindless boasts before the playoff loss to the Jaguars. Continue to Antonio Brown and the most egregious display of insubordination the franchise has ever seen in 2018, the final shameful act of a narcissistic horror show that had played out for years in front of the disbelieving eyes of teammates.
The Steelers thought they had a "cleansing" — Tomlin's word — when they rid themselves of both players after the 2018 season. But they were wrong.
JuJu Smith-Schuster has picked up the baton and tramped all over professional behavior the same way he danced on the opposing team's logo. It finally took a retributive hit from Cincinnati Bengals safety Vonn Bell that caused a Smith-Schuster fumble and led to a touchdown to force Tomlin to tell his receiver to stop with his disrespectful displays.
Like Brown, Smith-Schuster could be gone after the season. He is an unrestricted free agent who, as a receiver with 250 catches the past three seasons, could choose to listen to the tick-tock of another team's money flowing into his bank account. Not to worry.
Chase Claypool, who has spent his rookie year learning from Smith-Schuster, will still be around to carry on the tradition.
When asked earlier in the season what he has learned from being around the Steelers' top receiver, Claypool said the most important thing was "how to grow my brand ... and how to manage my brand." This was after he referred to the league as "a joke" in a Twitter post when the Thanksgiving night game against the Baltimore Ravens was postponed because of a virus spread.
In 2009, rookie cornerback Keenan Lewis was the last player off the field after a road victory because he stayed behind to talk to several players from the other team. When he arrived at the locker-room door, Tomlin said to Lewis, "You haven't been around long enough to be the last player off the field." A similar discussion was necessary with Claypool, who hasn't been around long enough to brandish the league that employs him a "joke."
None of this is meant to single out the behavior of players who are barely older than Heinz Field. Nor is it to suggest it's the sole reason for the problem. Social-media posts and growing Instagram followers are part of the ever-changing landscape of society, not just the NFL. However, it is up to the people who are old enough and smart enough to prevent some of today's professional athletes from doing things that are poorly reflective — if not downright embarrassing — of a franchise that for decades has prided itself on how to do it the right way.
Maybe more importantly, when that behavior is allowed to go unchecked, it can erode the trust of those in the locker room who question why it is permitted to continue. And when that continues to fester, drive and enthusiasm can begin to wear down like a teenager's cell phone.
The Steelers have to peel away the layers of what has transpired at the end of each of the past four seasons and attempt to isolate a reason for the repeated collapses. If they can, then they need to determine how to rectify the issue — if they can rectify the issue. Neither task will be easy.
Nonetheless, they have reached the point where tangible excuses such as injuries, schemes, personnel and in-game coaching decisions are no longer to blame. Something is innately wrong and, to borrow one of Tomlin's phrases, there is a large body of work since 2017 as evidence.
To be sure, doing nothing and expecting change is the definition of insanity. But it is more than that. It is inexcusable.
