Little Things Doom Steelers’ Valiant Effort

I’ll bet that I’ve led with this line more times than I care to remember but here it goes again… “The number one rule of football is don’t beat yourself.” The Pittsburgh Steelers did not adhere to that sentiment and it cost them. They dropped a winnable 27-16 game to the New England Patriots in front of a fired up home crowd.

The loss drops the Steelers to 4-3 heading into their bye week where the number one goal is to get healthy.

With Landry Jones filling in for Ben Roethlisberger, the Steelers weren’t given much of a chance but Jones was far from the reason this team lost. Yes, he miserably underthrew Antonio Brown in the end zone which resulted in an interception, but he did several good things in this game.

The real story though were the mistakes. A Chris Hubbard holding penalty (yes it was legit) took a touchdown off the board. That score would have tied it at 14. To make that drive worse, Chris Boswell missed the first of two field goals leaving the Steelers with no points when they could have had seven.

Boswell’s other miss, a much more understandable 54-yarder, should not have been attempted. This was the second of Mike Tomlin’s two big mistakes on the afternoon. His first was a ridiculous challenge of a Rob Gronkowski catch that was clearly that, a catch. Tomlin wasted a timeout on a very silly challenge.

His second mistake came in the fourth quarter when the Steelers were down two scores. Facing a fourth and two at the Pats’ 37 yard line, he chose the field goal attempt which sailed right before it ever got started. This was the same end of the field where New England’s Stephen Gostkowski missed an extra point in the third quarter.

Boswell did make three field goals on the day but that only explains more of the problems the team faced. Anytime you play a team the caliber of the Patriots you have to convert touchdowns and not settle for field goals. But of all the things I mentioned, the penalties may have been worse than those.

Four times the Steelers were nailed for false starts. Twice they were hit with offensive pass interference penalties (warranted or not) and several other times they were hit with holding calls. All together, this combination of penalties, missed field goals and poor decisions was too much to overcome.

The effort was there. That’s a start. Now the Steelers have to get healthy and work on their discipline. This is not a team that can beat itself and expect to beat the opponent too.