Coach Mike Tomlin was clear about what he wanted to see from his team in its preseason opener on Friday night against the Houston Texans at Acrisure Stadium.
"A high floor from a fundamental perspective," said Tomlin about 48 hours before the 7 p.m. kickoff. "Before you can start kicking butt, you gotta not kick your own butt. And I just think that's a component of this process. I don't want us to be highly penalized. I want us to have cleanliness on both sides of the ball pre-snap. I want us to do routine things routinely. Those are some of the things that I want to see the first time out. As opposed to the spectacular, I want to see some high floor things."
In a 20-12 loss to the Texans, Tomlin most assuredly didn't get what he wanted, and there were self-inflicted footprints all over the backsides of his players pants. Making it more annoying was that a good bit of it happened with the first groups on the field.
There were a couple of botched center-quarterback exchanges (the ultimate example of not doing "routine things routinely), and both came from Nate Herbig to Justin Fields. Those guys had been the No. 1 center and the No. 1 quarterback from Day 1 at Saint Vincent College and might have done it 1,000 times as a result. Each and every play in a football game begins with the center-quarterback exchange, and for two professionals to flub it twice in the first 7 snaps of the game just cannot happen.
Special teams also provided examples of the inability to get out of one's own way. None of the players who were tried at gunners on the punt team distinguished themselves – certainly not close to the level of Myles Boykin the previous couple of seasons. Dez Fitzpatrick was penalized for running out of bounds without being blocked, and that helped create a seam resulting in a 22-yard return with the 5-yard penalty added to the end of the run to provide the Texans with a first-and-10 at the Pittsburgh 34-yard line. Three plays later, Tank Dell caught a 34-yard touchdown pass from C.J. Stroud to make it 7-0 midway through the first period.
Sticking with penalties on special teams, Ryan Watts was flagged for holding on the return of the kickoff following Dell's touchdown, which meant the Steelers offense began its third possession at the 14-yard line. That was the final possession for Fields and the No. 1 offense, and it ended with a fourth-and-13 punt from the Texans' 43-yard line.
On the subject of punts, the Steelers defense forced the Houston offense to punt on three of its first four possessions only for returner Quez Watkins to have a rough go of it. On the first punt, Watkins made a fair catch when there appeared to be open grass for a return; on the third he muffed the catch and Houston took possession at the Pittsburgh 28-yard line. Six plays later the ball was in the end zone, and a 7-0 lead had become 14-0.
There also were some ebb and flow that will end up in Tomlin's crosshairs once everyone re-gathers at Saint Vincent College, too. Dez Fitzpatrick teamed up with Kyle Allen for a 34-yard catch-and-run to put the Steelers at the Texans 17-yard line, but even after moving to a first-and-goal from the 5-yard line the offense turned it over on downs.
Joey Porter Jr. was hit with a 24-yard pass interference penalty on a second-and-9 from the 9-yard line when No. 2 quarterback Davis Mills threw deep down the sideline to Robert Woods, no better than Houston's fourth-best receiver, according to the Texans' depth chart. That's something a team's No. 1 cornerback cannot allow to happen. He's got to be better than that.
"Just looking at it from a special teams perspective," began Tomlin, "the field position and points standpoint was JV. We had a block in the back on a kickoff return. From a field position perspective, we ran out of bounds without being forced on a punt that provided awesome field position for them. We had a bad snap on an extra point. We muffed the punt that produced 7 points.
"You can't play football like that and think you're going to be in games. Really it's amazing we had the ball in a one-score game at the end when you consider those things."
Tomlin wasn't finished. "On offense and defense, I thought we were JV on possession down football. Maybe 1-of 7-at one point on offense, not good enough. A couple of those were sacks. We had them in third-and-long several times on defense, and we lost those downs. We gave up a touchdown on the third-and-long in our safety rotation."
The fact Tomlin would present a detailed listing of his team's lapses during his postgame media session without prompting by a question sets up an interesting final week of their 2024 training camp.
Following an off day on Saturday, the Steelers are scheduled to have a 2:55 p.m. practice on Sunday, following what should end up being a brutally honest team meeting. The rest of the week includes 10:30 a.m. practices on Monday and Wednesday, and then a joint practice on Thursday with the Buffalo Bills that figures to last a couple of hours. Then at 7 p.m. on Saturday, they will take this same field for their opportunity to respond to a performance that was too JV in too many areas to have any real chance to win even a preseason game.
"Really a sloppy performance, to be honest with you," said Tomlin. "It's capable of happening in the first preseason game, but not that we find comfort in that. We work too hard to have the results we had tonight, so it's disappointing.
"How we work off it will define us, and we'll have a good rep at responding to negativity as we push into our next opportunity. We need to be significantly better. Taking nothing away from the Houston Texans, it's not about what they did. It was about the things we didn't do, or the wounds we inflicted on ourselves."
Today's date is Aug. 10, and the regular season doesn't start for the Steelers until Sept. 8, which is 29 days away. And then the regular season is going to demand 18 weeks after that.
The notion of pointing to a week in mid-August and labeling it a do-or-die moment feels ridiculous, and it most likely is. Yes, the offense had a first-and-goal at the 5-yard line and was unable to muscle it into the end zone, but neither Najee Harris nor Jaylen Warren were on the field. Yes, specials teams was JV "in the field position and points standpoint," but Calvin Austin III is going to be the one returning punts when the regular season begins. Yes, there is no excuse for twice botching the most fundamental act in the sport, and if Nate Herbig cannot get this executed with Russell Wilson either, then it will be time to find out whether Zach Frazier, the guy they picked 51st overall in the most recent draft, can do any better.
There are reasons and explanations for everything in football but when allowed to take root and become excuses is when they can rot a team from the inside. There seemed to be something brewing on a college campus in Latrobe, and it felt like you were watching the early stages of a team establishing a mind-set of how it wanted to play football while also willing to work to make it their reality.
The drills during their practices were physical, competitive, and confrontational. Then they lined up and did it again. Maybe a third time if Tomlin would allow it. They were challenged by heat and fatigue, and after allowances for bodies to bounce back they'd line up and do it again.
This week needs to be about using the scheduled practices to get back to the intensity and competitiveness of their first 13 days in camp, and then following up with a performance to a commensurate level. It's not possible for the second game of a preseason to be must-win, but bouncing back from sloppy is a necessary step
There still is time. That's true. But it's also true that there's none to waste.
