Mike Tomlin on finishing 1-5 after starting 11-0: "We didn't do enough. We didn't position them in enough good circumstances. We didn't make enough plays in the critical moments. We were a group that died on the vine."
— Brooke Pryor (@bepryor) January 11, 2021
The last month and a half hasn’t been good for the Pittsburgh Steelers. After starting the season 11-0, everything unraveled and the Steelers finished the regular season 1-5. They then went into the playoffs and all the problems of those last six games followed them and Pittsburgh fell to the Cleveland Browns 48-37 in the playoffs.
During the final six games of the regular season, head coach Mike Tomlin was asked countless times about what was wrong with his team and could it be fixed. Tomlin continually deflected these questions, downplaying the problems and how difficult is would be to fix them.
But on Sunday night a dejected Tomlin spoke to the media and finally admitted his team died on the vine down the stretch.
“We didn’t do enough. We didn’t position them in enough good circumstances,” Tomlin said. “We didn’t make enough plays in the critical moments. We were a group that died on the vine.”
The failings of this team down the stretch fall squarely on the shoulders of Tomlin. There will be plenty of fans who will scream for Tomlin’s job after this season but the Rooney’s are not like that. Tomlin will be back but let’s hope this season was humbling as they enter a minimum of a two-year rebuild.
