Steelers’ Cam Heyward isn’t the only one in Pittsburgh admitting concern about how bought in some of his teammates are
It’s time for Steelers defenders to look themselves in the mirror.
If anyone on the Pittsburgh Steelers will tell it like it is, it’s Cam Heyward. The team captain was visibly and vocally upset following the second poor showing from his defense in as many weeks.
“You gotta handle adversity a lot better,” said Heyward after the game, via Joe Rutter of Trib Live. “This game eroded in the second half, and big plays were the death of us today. You’re not going to be perfect out there, but you’ve got to keep fighting. I just think there is a lot of ball and not enough fight on our side.”
A damning statement about how deep the Steelers’ defense is willing to dig, Mike Tomlin tends to agree with his captain, but with a spin.
Steelers’ defense has to show more fight going forward
“Cam and I are usually aligned in terms of how we see things relative to this collective and what we need to do to push forward,” said Mike Tomlin during his weekly presser via the Steelers YouTube channel. “I don’t necessarily say a lack of fight in terms of effort.
“I’m talking about fight in terms of play. You know, you don’t get credit for trying hard. We’re not in the try-hard business. Our fight is about production and producing, and we certainly didn’t produce enough plays over the last 30 minutes of the game, particularly in any of the phases, to secure victory.”
When teams start having to answer questions about effort, will, fight, and being fully bought in, that’s a bad sign. We saw that occur down the stretch with the Steelers last season, as they imploded after a 10-3 start.
To hear similar questions be asked, this early in the season, when the team is atop the division, means one of two things. Either it was just an emotional statement, in the heat of the moment, by Heyward that is over reactionary, or the Steelers have lost hope.
If it’s the latter, that doesn’t bode well for the remainder of the season. But Heyward and Tomlin weren’t the only ones pointing out things beyond the play on the field after Sunday’s loss to the Green Bay Packers. Patrick Queen addressed the confidence of the team.
“I think from time to time, we’re human, you know, so that happens, but at the end of the day, you know, we got to pull each other back as as a brotherhood, as a family, and just try to battle back from these things,” said Queen when asked if the Steelers defense had lost confidence after the last two weeks. “You know, always keep your family close, always try to do the best you can to keep everybody locked in close to each other.”
Right now, the Steelers feel far apart, but a win against the best offense in the league on Sunday can change all of that.
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