Coach Mike Tomlin Opening Statement:"I think we need to acknowledge that was 49er football tonight. We played the game on their terms in the manner of which they play when they play winning football. They created turnovers, they got turnovers, they got us with a few concept plays, they controlled the ball offensively. We didn't do enough. They played with the lead and played how they play. We didn't maintain possession of the ball enough. We allowed them to put drives together. That's football. We acknowledge what we did or didn't do here tonight. We had better lick our wounds pretty quickly. We have a big turnaround here on Saturday versus St. Louis. We had better start moving forward and preparing for that. We acknowledge what we did here. We're not going to make more of it than what it is. We had an opportunity and we didn't seize it. We accept responsibility for that. We'll evaluate this performance like we do all of the other ones and make the necessary corrections. We'd better make them quickly and be prepared to move on here when we get back into Pittsburgh."
How serious was the [LB] LaMarr [Woodley] injury?"I don't have that information at this juncture. I think he was fine. I just think we were rotating some guys through. Fatigue became an issue. For a guy coming off of an injury of that nature, I'll of course have some more information on that tomorrow and on [S] Ryan Clark as well."
Talk about the decision to start [QB] Ben [Roethlisberger] and his performance."He was healthy enough to play. We always like what Ben provides us, not only from his quality of play, but his leadership. This guy is a tremendous competitor. We appreciate his efforts, obviously we fell short tonight."
Was there any thought of pulling him when he was getting knocked around early?"No. I didn't think he was getting knocked around early to be honest with you. I thought we had some nice looks. We just turned the ball over a little bit. We were moving the ball, but we weren't finishing drives. We were turning the ball over. They have a reputation of creating turnovers and they confirmed it tonight."
Is it easy to say that the last two games are a result of Ben's injury?"I'm not in the business of analyzing multiple performances as I stand here tonight. I'm more interested in what we did or didn't do tonight. Obviously, we didn't score enough points tonight."
At the end of the first half, did you think about taking a time out?"We were outside of field goal range. We weren't close enough."
Did the power outages affect your performance?"No, the lights went out on both teams. We stand by our performance."
Can you comment on the 49ers line?"As they seized control of the game in the waning parts of the second half and we got somewhat one-dimensional, they were able to get consistent pressure on us. That's a function of the situation. I tip my hat to them, of course. Guys like [LB] Aldon Smith are very good quality rushers, but I don't think that was the story of the evening from a protection standpoint. I thought as the game got out of control and the time became a factor, that we got one-dimensional and they got more pressure."
Is there a sense of frustration that you had a chance to control your own destiny and you didn't seize it?"There's frustration that we didn't play winning football tonight. That's what it is. We came here to win a football game. We're a small picture outfit. When you're winning, you don't have to look around and big picture analyze. Obviously, we didn't win so those are discussions that we'll have moving forward. But our mentality coming into this thing was to win this football game and we didn't do that."
Is Ben less accurate than normal due to injury?"I'm not going to paint with that type of brush, or relate it to injuries. The reality is that we didn't play as well as we would like tonight."
