Cleat Snafu Costs Steelers vs. 49ers

PITTSBURGH — The Steelers slid all over the field, quite literally. After Pitt and Cincinnati played on the field about 15 hours earlier, only one team on Sunday tripped consistently. The Steelers fell at least thrice on the field, with Patrick Peterson falling on a Brandon Aiyuk touchdown and Diontae Johnson falling, leading to an interception. Pat Freiermuth fell on a stop route, causing an incompletion that would have ended up as a first down.

After the game, Peterson noted that he did change his cleats after the touchdown. As a benefactor, the rest of the team did, too. They did not slip the rest of the game, but the 49ers did not slip once in the entire game. It highlighted one area where the Steelers fell woefully short.

“I did (slip), but as a ball player, we have to understand the surface we played on,” Peterson said. “That’s why I ended up changing those cleats after that.”

Mike Tomlin did not make excuses for the cleats. Instead, he shook it off and blamed his performance overall. But the disparity in the amount of slipping from one side to the other clarifies what happened. The Steelers’ equipment did not hold up on the field for whatever reason.

“We’re not looking for comfort. It’s all of the above. The end result is the end result and so we own it all. We’re not trying to isolate it or blame any component of it,” Tomlin said.

Wearing the right cleats would not have changed the game’s outcome, but it was significant in what occurred. The Steelers have to test out those cleats and fix that before the game next time. It’s an oversight that undoubtedly hurt them as an escalating factor when it should not have. Pittsburgh has to regroup, on and off the field, before their Week 2 game against the Browns.