There weren’t many people who game the Pittsburgh Steelers a chance to beat the New England Patriots on Sunday night. But I’m not sure anyone outside of the Patriots fanbase who thought New England would rout the Steelers 33-3. It was an ugly game from the opening kickoff to the final whistle for the Steelers.
Head coach Mike Tomlin was asked about what went wrong on Sunday night and he said as a team, “we weren’t ready for prime time tonight.” A reporter followed up by asking why he thinks the team wasn’t ready for prime time to which Tomlin answered quickly. “It doesn’t matter.”
But it does matter. It especially matters if the reason this team seemed so overmatched was that the coaches didn’t do their job in preparing this team. Even at halftime when asked about the changes in-game the Steelers made to the scheme Tomlin dismissed the notion of the scheme being the problem and instead turned it to the players and execution.
Everyone involved in this loss needs to partake in some reflection including Tomlin and his assistant coaches. None of them seemed to be ready for prime time either.
