It happened to Mike Tomlin and the Steelers again

Shame on me. I thought, foolishly, that injuries mattered, and that the Indianapolis Colts would be too beat up to throw a scare into the Steelers, much less hand them their first defeat of the season.

Indy was missing starting center Ryan Kelly, starting nickel cornerback Kenny Moore II, starting defensive end Kwity Paye, not to mention starting defensive tackle DeForest Buckner, their best run defender.

Your mileage may vary, but I thought it would be tough for a team that came into the game with the league’s 31^st-ranked defense, one that had allowed the most rushing yards in the league, to stop the Steelers from battering them into submission.

I also foolishly believed that taking away Anthony Richardson’s center would make his life more difficult. Considering that his last two games yielded five interceptions, Kelly’s absence seemed like a good thing for the Steelers. Surely Richardson, making just his eighth NFL start, would suffer without a talented veteran calling out protections, anchoring the run blocking, and generally providing a stabilizing influence against the league’s nastiest defense.

Whoops.

I forgot that Mike Tomlin is coaching the Steelers, and that games like this tend to happen often enough that they’re termed “Tomlin Losses.” My preference in the past was to call them “Roethlisberger Losses” as well, because whenever the Steelers would stub their toe against an inferior team, the quarterback usually had a horrible game, too. Unsurprisingly, this didn’t catch on as much. People tend to blame the coach before the quarterback just about everywhere.

Make no mistake, though. Even without a future Hall of Famer at quarterback (that guy was wearing number 3 in black and gold), this was very much a Tomlin Loss.

You can support such a claim by citing the myriad sloppy mistakes the Steelers made, and I will, but it was more fundamental than that.

Shane Steichen schemed circles around Tomlin. Steichen and offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter make up Indianapolis’ offensive brain trust, and Tomlin and defensive coordinator Teryl Austin fill the same role for the Steelers. But let’s be real: Steichen calls the Colts’ offense, and Tomlin the Steelers’ defense. That was the matchup Sunday.

Steichen clowning Tomlin is not a new phenomenon. He put 35 on the Steelers in 2022 when he was the Eagles’ offensive coordinator, then 30 last year with Gardner Minshew under center. The trend continued yesterday, even as Joe Flacco had to take over for an injured Richardson in the first quarter.

Richardson hit Pittman for 32 yards on the first play of the game, the Colts immediately went tempo, and the Steelers had no answers. Confusion and chaos reigned supreme, Patrick Queen alternated between angrily shrugging his shoulders and being out of position, and before you could settle down on your couch with the beer and chips, it was 7-0.

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Flacco had to come in on the next series, and the Colts didn’t miss a beat. He was throwing darts to wide-open receivers, the Steelers looked lost, and were very soon down 14-0. Tomlin had no counterpunch to speak of, which was particularly frustrating because unlike Richardson, Flacco is a sitting duck in the pocket. The run-pass option goes out the window with him.

The bleeding slowed down after the first two drives but never really stopped, and though they were no longer hemorrhaging points, the Steelers still seemed hellbent on doing their best to make it abundantly clear that they were ill-prepared, unfocused, and clearly not ready to play winning football.

Here is a brief list off the top of my head of dumb, careless, or inept things the team did over the course of 60 minutes. Add your own in the comments if you’d like!

-Joey Porter Jr. twice jumps a route and twice comes away empty despite looking like he could have intercepted both passes. One of the drops was in the end zone, and enabled the Colts to kick a field goal. I’ll allow you, dear reader, to check the final margin of victory and report back to me.

-Broderick Jones and Spencer Anderson both attempted to commit unnecessary roughness penalties on the same play. Extra points to Anderson, who actually got the penalty.

-Tomlin foolishly challenged a clear catch by the Colts, presumably because Porter jumped up gesticulating like something untoward had happened.

-George Pickens held the ball like a man begging to have it stripped from him, which it was. Inside the five-yard line, mind you.

-Fields had a bizarre fumble that didn’t cost the Steelers points, but did lend a Keystone Cops vibe to the proceedings.

-Fields and Zach Frazier botched the first snap of the game, and then combined to botch another one, this time in the shotgun, when the Steelers were trying to complete a furious rally.

-TWO PLAYS LATER, Najee Harris failed to get out of bounds, keeping the clock running with under a minute to go, while the Steelers were facing a 4^th-and-the-game situation.

-They inexplicably did not use their final timeout to set up a play, failed to convert, and the game was over. You can’t take them with you, Mike.

-Tomlin failed to challenge when it appeared Harris had enough yardage on a third-down run, then the team went shotgun and got stuffed on fourth and one.

I could keep going but I’m starting to get annoyed again. The bottom line is that a frustratingly familiar script played out. The Steelers had a wounded opponent that looked ripe for the picking in front of them, and not only did they not win, they were at risk of getting blown out until Fields and the offense started humming in the last 20 minutes.

They looked unprepared, unfocused, unsure of their assignments, undisciplined, and unlike a team ready to handle their business. All of that reflects back on the head coach more than anyone else.

Tomlin gets so much credit, particularly nationally, when the Steelers win games like they did for the first three weeks this year. Losses like this one should stick to him more than they do. It’s his defense that got strafed, first by the league’s most interception-prone, inaccurate passer, and then by a 40-year-old who I might be able to beat in a 40-yard dash.

It happens too often. Last year, an average Steelers team lost back-to-back games to a pair of 2-10 teams, making ignominious NFL history in the process. This felt like a gift, at least on paper. Banged-up opponent that might be having some doubts about itself, a chance to go 4-0 and make things tougher on the rest of the AFC North, and it was frittered away thanks to mental errors, poor scheming, poor tackling and poor fundamentals.

The Steelers still have the look of at least an above-average football team, maybe even a good one. They just had a very bad day.

Unfortunately, it’s one we all should have seen coming.