Mike McCarthy immediately acknowledges his mistake after inadvertently throwing the Pittsburgh Steelers’ defense under the bus
The Pittsburgh Steelers offense delivered on Sunday, but McCarthy’s postgame admission about his scoring target tells a much bigger story about how he game-planned for Cincinnati.
The Pittsburgh Steelers offense showed up in a major way on Sunday against the Cincinnati Bengals, but the defense left a lot to be desired. Joe Burrow knew it after the game. And it turns out Steelers coach Mike McCarthy actually planned on this happening.
As McCarthy would state in his postgame presser when asked about his offensive performance via the Steelers YouTube channel, he planned for Sunday:
“I wrote down 31 in my notes going in as far as the target. And that’s the last time I’m going to say something like that because I was stupid for that to come out of my mouth, but I just knew that I felt like we needed to score points,” McCarthy said.
So other than the fact that he inadvertently threw his defense under the bus, McCarthy was 100% right.
Bengals offensive stats vs Steelers
- 352 total yards
- 27 points scored
- 1 sack allowed
Joe Burrow played pitch and catch against Pittsburgh’s defense
The Bengals put up 27 points and were driving until Derrick Harmon called game, which credit to him. Burrow was carving up the Steelers secondary for the large majority of that contest. He started 14-for-14. He finished 28-of-37 for 282 yards and 3 touchdown passes. He completed 75% of his passes, and Pittsburgh’s pass rush was completely nonexistent. On top of that, Ja’Marr Chase nearly went for 100 yards and a touchdown.
McCarthy was right, whether or not he meant to publicly acknowledge that he didn’t think his defense was going to be able to stop Burrow and Cincinnati…That is neither here nor there. The truth of the matter is he game-planned to go out there and score a lot of points, and his play designs looked great.
McCarthy showed what he does best
The play calling was sharp because time, down and distance, and game situation all matter. McCarthy looked like an experienced head coach doing what he does best in terms of getting his offense aligned and putting points on the board. His play designs were creative, and his situational awareness was evident throughout, and he seemed to be on the same page with Rodgers, which wasn’t the case against New England.
In my opinion, this was a well-called game from McCarthy. A big-time offensive performance from the Steelers, even if it came with the unintended consequence of the head coach throwing his own defense under the bus in the process.
