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Steelers are mad and they should be

6 min read
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Any room for error the Steelers had is pretty much out the window at this point. They can’t lose another game at home this season – though they only have three such games remaining.

And they need to figure out a way to win at least three of their final four road games, starting next week at Cleveland.

It’s a tall task but it’s a hole the Steelers have dug for themselves.

Offensive coordinator Todd Haley yelled over to receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey as the team went into the locker room following its 35-30 loss to Dallas Sunday, “We’ll learn from this one, Hey-Bey.”

We keep hearing that, but as defensive end Cameron Heyward said following this loss – in a game in which the lead changed hands eight times, “We can sit here and say it’s a great learning example, but learning doesn’t get you wins. We no longer can keep doing that. Undisciplined football is going to get us beat.”

By undisciplined, Heyward wasn’t talking about rookie safety Sean Davis’ facemask penalty that set up Dallas’ game-winning score. Those kind of things happen. And the Steelers were penalized just four times for 40 yards in this game – compared to 10-98 for Dallas.

So much for Ben Roethlisberger saying the Cowboys were the more “disciplined” team in this game.

Heyward was speaking of players getting out of their gaps, trying to do too much, trying to be Superman instead of just doing their job.

It’s a mantra for the Patriots. But when you see a running back twice go into the end zone untouched late in a game – or at any time for that matter – somebody didn’t do their job.

“We shouldn’t have lost that game,” said safety Mike Mitchell. “Hats off to them. They executed. I felt like we made the plays to lose that game, not to win that game. It was very un-Steeler-like. I’m disappointed by that.”

There was a lot of disappointment in that locker room following this loss. Nobody is happy. It was as close to a playoff-loss-type atmosphere that I have been around in my 24 seasons of covering this team.

And that might be a good thing.

This team might have finally hit bottom – just as the team did in 2014 when it lost to the Cleveland Browns in embarrassing fashion. That team got mad as hell and wasn’t going to take it any longer. This one might have hit that same point.

And considering nobody seems to be ready to run away with the AFC North this season – current division leader Baltimore also has suffered through a four-game losing streak – the division is still very much in play.

Anything beyond that, however, seems like a pipe dream. When the offense plays well, the defense lets it down. When the defense plays well, the offense doesn’t follow suit.

“I don’t feel like we’ve played a complete game this season,” said running back Le’Veon Bell.

He’s right. Maybe that’s still coming. But the Steelers have to draw a line in the sand and say, enough is enough before that happens.

@ Ezekiel Elliott just hits the hole fast and hard and always seems to fall forward.

But until his two big runs for touchdowns in the final quarter, the Steelers had held him to a long gain of eight yards on the ground.

He did also have an 83-yard touchdown on a perfectly executed screen play, but Pittsburgh’s defensive game plan wasn’t bad until it was.

@ A lot of fans were taking to social media to question the team’s decision to go for 2 after every touchdown in this game, but it was done in an attempt to put pressure on Dallas’ offense in the hope it would have to stop feeding Elliott the ball.

The Steelers were 20-26 going for 2 under Tomlin. That’s pretty damn good.

They went 0-4 Sunday. That’s pretty damn bad.

And it shows that this team still doesn’t have the offensive playmakers it thought it did – we all thought it did – when this season began.

Sammie Coates as MIA again on Sunday, getting just one target on limited snaps. Eli Rogers is a nice complimentary player and had four catches for 42 yards and a touchdown, but he’s not going to force an opposing defense to gameplan for him. Cobi Hamilton? Jesse James? Ladarius Green?

Even if one of those guys steps forward, they won’t have the impact of Martavis Bryant.

Coates is perhaps the most disappointing of that group. We saw him have a lot of success early in this season, but it’s become apparent he’s lost the trust of quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and the coaching staff.

@ Would those complaining about the two-point plays still being doing so if the Steelers had made them all? I think not.

Fact is, even if the Steelers had kicked and made them all, they would have finished with 34 points. And they still would have lost 37-34 because Dallas wouldn’t have felt the need to go for 2 – which they also failed at twice.

@ When you see rookies such as Artie Burns and Sean Davis struggling at times, it drives home why former defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau didn’t like playing rookies.

Mike Ditka also once said that you can add a loss to your record for every rookie you have in your starting lineup.

Burns continued his welcome to the NFL by drawing Dez Bryant Sunday, a tough task for any NFL defensive back. And Bryant got away with some stuff against the rookie on his way to catching six passes for 116 yards.

Davis, meanwhile, did some good things in this game. But he’ll be remembered for a facemask penalty that put the Cowboys in field goal range.

The tough thing is that he didn’t turn tight end Jason Witten’s head. And he let go right away. And the play very easily could have and probably should have been whistled dead before the facemask was touched.

But it wasn’t.

These are the learning moments that Heyward spoke of as well. When you get them while winning, it’s no big deal. When it happens in a loss, those things are magnified.

@ I was listening to the end of the Sunday night game on my way home and know that I must have misheard what happened.

There’s no way the Patriots fumbled and had penalties and miscues late in a game. Bill Belichick is too good for that to happen, right?

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