Steelers at Colts: Tomlin Monday

The Steelers have a short week to recover from their win over Cleveland to face the Colts on Thanksgiving evening.

To shore up the week that was and to look ahead to the Colts Mike Tomlin brings us his presser a day early to review the win over the Browns, update any injury statuses, breakdown the matchup against the Colts and answer questions.

There’s no doubt that the win over the Browns was a necessary one. Tomlin noted that in some instances in the game the offense was stalled in the red zone and had to settle for field goals. Against a better team those points, or lack thereof, would have cost bigtime.

Obviously there’s no doubt the response of the team against the Browns was just what was needed but the results have to be tempered with the fact that they were playing the Browns. The Browns are a bad football team, there’s no denying that.

You can be super stoked the Steelers went in there and took care of business but it unfortunately doesn’t mean you can say with confidence that they’re headed in the right direction. There’s not enough evidence because they did good things against a really crappy team.

They’ll have a tougher time against the Colts.

As far as injuries it was one of the better outings that the team has had this season given that there were no in-game injuries to speak of. Looks like players like Ladarius Green and Bud Dupree, who were both just recently added to the lineup from injury, haven’t had any adverse effects.

"“Got out of that game with nothing to speak of, injury-wise. Guys have to turn around pretty quickly if they want to be included in our plans.” – Mike Tomlin"

Questions

Tomlin was asked about the end of the first half where the team attempted to get into the endzone on two un-timed downs thanks to Browns penalties. A field goal would’ve been rather automatic at that distance and they were getting the ball back to start the second half but a touchdown is what they went for instead.

Tomlin reiterated that the team likes to be aggressive in that area and intend on continue being aggressive there.

The leadership issue came up again and Tomlin explained that he doesn’t put any more value over vocal leadership on the team as opposed to players who lead by example. He stated that he much rather the players be authentically themselves and not try to step into a role that is not natural for them.

Tomlin stated that the team did lean on defensive end Stephon Tuitt to step up in Cameron Heyward’s absence. Tuitt responded with six tackles and two and a half sacks. Tomlin also talked up the contribution of rookie Javon Hargrave, who recorded his first career sack.

Tomlin also repeated his disagreement with some of the calls made by officials like the unnecessary roughness call against Lawrence Timmons. He said that he was disturbed by some of the calls that were made.

Tomlin hadn’t been so vocal about criticizing officials before today so it seems like he was rather irked after this game.

In terms of players leading by example Tomlin noted that less than 24 hours from becoming Pittsburgh’s all-time sack leader James Harrison was in the weight room working out at 7:00 am Monday morning on a short week. There’s no doubt that the other players see that type of example he sets.

When asked about the availability of some of the injured players to return for the Colts game like DeAngelo Williams and Darrius Heyward-Bey we got our Tomlinism of the week.

"Tomlin said that he wouldn’t already rule anyone “out” for Thursday night’s game against the Colts but if they wanted to jump on the moving train they would have to do so quickly."

He’s still keeping a lid on the “Obviously’s” for the year and I only counted 2 for this presser that was just about twenty minutes.

Next: Steelers Week 11 Recap

You can listen to Tomlin’s entire presser right here.

Bring on the Colts! Here we go Steelers! Here we go!