Mike Tomlin Sends Clear Message to Russell Wilson: Take Better Care of the Football
PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Steelers offense and quarterback Russell Wilson have been struggling, no matter how you look at it, for the last few weeks.
In the last three games, they’ve scored just 40 total points. They’ve thrown for a total of 467 yards, after throwing for 410 in Week 13 against the Cincinnati Bengals alone. Wilson has been sacked 10 times in that span. They’ve yet to finish with more than 32 minute time of possession, and twice have been under 28 minutes.
But when asked about how his offense can be better than it has been going forward on Monday, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin only had one issue that he cared to mention: turnovers.
The Steelers have turned the ball over five times over the last three games. Wilson has been intercepted twice. He lost a fumble, was given credit for a second, and put another on the turf. Pat Freiermuth also lost a fumble.
And the turnovers came in costly places on the field and times in the game.
Against the Eagles, the Steelers were trailing by seven in the third quarter, and driving at the Philadelphia 26-yard line when Najee Harris fumbled a Wilson toss and the Eagles got the ball. They answered with a touchdown to go up two scores and put the game out of reach.
Against the Ravens, Wilson fumbled inside the 5-yard line early in the game. After a Minkah Fitzpatrick interception gave the Steelers new life, down a touchdown late, he threw a pick six to Marlon Humphrey to seal the loss.
Last week, the Steelers had a chance to answer quickly to an early 13-0 hole when Wilson forced an interception into triple coverage in the end zone on a second down play. Any points on that drive would have changed the flow of the rest of the game.
“Man, we turned that ball over going into the end zone, that’s significant,” Tomlin said in his opening statement on Monday. “We turned the ball over to start the second half on the short field, provided those guys a short field, and you just can’t give offensive units and offensive players like [Patrick] Mahomes short fields. You can’t take points off the board when you’re in scoring position.”
While Tomlin spoke only in generalities, that is as fairly pointed criticism of Wilson. Wilson himself was responsible for three of those five turnovers, all of which resulted in points added to the opposite or taken away from the Steelers.
Asked later about what his offense needs to do this week to get back to where it was in that first game against the Bengals, Tomlin went right back to turnovers.
“Take care of the football and stay on schedule,” he said. “I think when we stay on the schedule and we take care of the football, we’re a formidable group and at times, particularly in the last several weeks, we’ve been spotty in those regards.”
Tomlin was also asked specifically about the interception in the end zone against the Chiefs, and about how much George Pickens’ route running contributed to that ball being picked off.
“Not at all,” Tomlin said. “George’s route running had zero to do with that interception.”
The obvious implication is that, to Tomlin, it was mostly on Wilson.
Tomlin has tolerated some bad quarterback play at times over the last few years. But the one thing he won’t tolerate is turning the ball over. It took until Mitch Trubisky threw three interceptions in one game last year for Tomlin to turn things over to Mason Rudolph.
The biggest reason that Wilson is playing in the first place is that the Steelers clearly didn’t trust Justin Fields to not continue the turnover-fest that came from his time as starting quarterback of the Chicago Bears.
Fields played better than expected during his early-season stint as the team’s starter, primarily because the team greatly reduced the amount of risk they were operating with while Fields was at quarterback.
Instead of opening up the offense with Fields, they turned back to Wilson. If he’s going to turn the ball over at an elevated rate, his reduced athleticism and effectiveness in the red zone start to look like not such a great deal in comparison.
The message is clear, and who it’s direct at is clear. The Steelers have to stop turning the ball over.
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