Their problems, whatever they are, have not been fixed. They have talked about fixing them, they have vowed to do the necessary work to fix them. But when it comes time to play a game, it's clear their problems have not been fixed.
Three games ago, the Steelers were 10-3 and sitting atop the AFC North with a 2-game lead over Baltimore, with a mathematical chance to compete for the top seed in their conference. Everything they had talked about achieving and had worked for months to get into position to achieve, all of it was right in front of them and completely in their control. But now they're on a three-game losing streak after a 29-10 defeat on a Christmas Day that was anything but merry.
Even though this loss came at the hands of the two-time defending champion Kansas City Chiefs, they should take no solace in that because the problems that cost them in Philadelphia proved to be versions of the issues that cost them in Baltimore six days later, and then things somehow were even worse four days after that.
"You know, that sucked, to be blunt," said Coach Mike Tomlin to open his postgame remarks to the media. "Not the type of ball we want to play, and really kind of eerily similar to our last performance in that we're not doing the fundamental things well enough. We're turning the ball over. We're not getting turnovers. That hasn't been a recipe for us, but it has been of late."
Those 10-3 Steelers had climbed to the upper rungs of the NFL in takeaways (28) and turnover ratio (plus-17) thanks to a top-5 defense that tortured opponents with relentless pressure, and they also exhibited a resiliency that helped them win twice as often as they lost when involved in 1-score games. But these 10-6 Steelers are none of those things, certainly none of those things consistently enough to win games against the caliber of competition they've faced over the last 11 days.
During the losing streak, their sack total went from 3 to 1 to none, their takeaways from 2 to 1 to none, and their turnover ratio from plus-1 to minus-1 to minus-2. Consequently they lost to the Eagles by 14 points, then to the Ravens by 17, and then to the Chiefs by 19.
Exacerbating the declining takeaway totals is the number of squandered opportunities for takeaways. Four times the ball was on the ground in the games against Baltimore and then Kansas City, and the Steelers came up with none of them. Balls batted into the air fell incomplete instead of secured by a defender for an interception. And some of these misses have turned out to be real tone-setters, coming at the times in which they did.
Against the Ravens for example, Alex Highsmith strip-sacked Lamar Jackson only to have the ball recovered by the guy who gave up the sack. If the Steelers recovered that, and if their offense takes advantage of the field position to score the game's first points so early and in such a way, maybe Lamar Jackson remains the discombobulated player who came into the game with a 1-4 record vs. the Steelers instead of blossoming into the MVP frontrunner he is now.
And if the Steelers had used that as fuel to win for the 9th time in their last 10 games vs. the Ravens, they would have clinched the AFC North Division with two games to go to then have the luxury of fine tuning some things and building momentum heading into the postseason.
But as the idiom goes, "If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, everyone would have a Merry Christmas," and the Steelers had anything but a Merry Christmas during a 3-hour tussle vs. the Chiefs that became disappointingly one-sided. It took some time, but the Chiefs established their superiority partly by taking advantage of situations along the way.
Because Kansas City won the toss and chose to defer, the Steelers offense was on the field to start the game. On a third-and-2, Russell Wilson lost control of the ball in the process of trying to avoid the rush, and that 11-yard loss led to a 40-yard punt returned 25 yards to set up Patrick Mahomes on the Steelers' side of midfield. Three running plays later, the Steelers defense had Kansas City in a fourth-and-1 situation from the Pittsburgh 33-yard line. A 4-yard run by Kareem Hunt moved the chains, and 4 plays later Mahomes completed a short pass to WR Xavier Worthy that became a 7-yard touchdown and a 6-0 lead.
The stretches of complementary football that had characterized the 10-3 Steelers vanished during the slide to 10-6, and the examples early in this game helped Kansas City take control. Corliss Waitman's second punt traveled 58 yards, and a big hit by ILB Mark Robinson on the return had the ball on the grass at the Chiefs 21-yard line. But it was Deon Bush who covered it to save possession for Kansas City. Starting with a third-and-11 from his own 20-yard line, Mahomes completed 3-of-4 for 74 yards, including an 11-yard touchdown to WR Justin Watson for a 13-0 lead.
Again with a chance to display some of that necessary complementary football, the Steelers ultimately came up empty. Starting at their 23-yard line following the kickoff, George Pickens made a nice play on a Russell Wilson deep shot for 41 yards, and then Jaylen Warren ripped off a 22-yard run over left tackle. Two more Warren carries and the ball was in the end zone, but a holding penalty on Darnell Washington took the touchdown off the board. On the next play, Wilson threw into coverage over the middle, and S Justin Reid intercepted in the end zone.
That the Steelers managed a touchdown before halftime and then a field goal in the third quarter was just a tease because Kansas City matched the third quarter field goal and followed it with back-to-back touchdowns, one of which came via a short field after a Pat Freiermuth fumble at the 34-yard line.
"So you can look at it from a lot of angles. The bottom line is junior varsity is not good enough," said Tomlin. "We've got to own that. But we've also got to look at what it is we need to do different. We're not going to continue to do the same things and hope for a different result. That doesn't seem sharp to me. So we're going to take a hard look at this. We've got a couple extra days before we get back into it. We're going to take a look at it and make whatever necessary changes we need to make in the totality of this thing, because again, that doesn't feel good. It doesn't look good. That's just the truth and reality of it."
