Mike Tomlin: Steelers Must ‘Learn and Grow’ from Taunting Fouls

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — The Steelers won over the Los Angeles Rams in Inglewood on Sunday, but it did come without some bumps in the road. Namely, the team struggled with some discipline, as they were called for two vital taunting penalties. George Pickens and Diontae Johnson got nailed for those penalties, making their lives much harder. Tomlin said that they can not happen into the future of this team.

“Grow, learn and grow,” Tomlin said. “In totality, I’m talking about what we can do moving forward. There’s nothing we can do about what happened today, but it’s in the can. But we can learn from out experiences moving forward.”

Breaking down those penalties, Pickens and Johnson each answered about what they thought happened. Pickens said that the Rams got into his face a few times and gave him some small shoves after the game. But he acknowledged that he has to be better at responding to things like that. Still, he thinks they were trying to get under his skin.

“I feel like personally, going out there, a game like this showed me, they’re kinda looking at me for trying to mess up,” Pickens said. Guys are antagonizing me more. Today is the first time I’ve seen anything like that. Guys were really just trying to get me out of the game or get under my skin deliberately. All I can really say is keep fighting hard.”

That’s nothing out of the ordinary for teams to start doing. They want to test Pickens’ patience. As for Johnson, he got into a bit of a squabbling match with former Steelers cornerback Ahkello Witherspoon. Johnson, as Pickens, acknowledges that he can be better in that area but feels like the interaction was misconstrued.

“It’s just something I have to avoid,” Johnson said. “You know, in the moment, I thought I didn’t really do anything, but I kinda went like this (finger wag) to him to Ahkello Witherspoon and we cool but the refs wouldn’t know, so that’s something we have to avoid.”

Tomlin would later say that he would rather say ‘whoa than sic’em’ to these players, who are competitors. He has applied that to many players, including Pickens, in the past. But it does have to be ironed out at some point. Regardless, it did not hurt the Steelers, whose offense started to churn in the fourth quarter and overcome the Rams’ defense. Pittsburgh now hopes they can turn that performance into more than just one showing.