The final point
When you look at a coaching staff you can generally tell how good they are regardless of the talent level they are dealing with by looking at a couple of things. The first thing is turnovers. Jackson won MVP last year. He isn’t the best passer, however, he is pretty good at not throwing interceptions. Coming into Week 8 he only had 2 on the season. He threw 2 interceptions in this game. Jackson also lost two fumbles, granted I feel that too much is on his shoulders without a good talent base at the receiver spot. Yet, you need to have more discipline and smarts from your quarterback and just your players in general. Pittsburgh’s offense gave up one turnover all game. Baltimore had 4.
Another part of it is discipline. You can’t have a lot of penalties in every physical game and expect a good outcome. The Steelers played very clean, and disciplined brand of football compared to their opponents in Week 8 and that is a direct reflection on the coaching staff. Pittsburgh would be penalized only 3 times for 30 yards in this game. Baltimore would be penalized 9 times for 110 yards. If a team gives up over 100 yards on penalties and turns the ball over 4 times, they are more than likely going to lose. It doesn’t matter how good, bad, or unhealthy their opponents are.
The last two things you can judge a coach on, are the adjustments they make at half time and their play on special teams. Jordan Berry had a very up and down day in the punting game. He had 3 punts go for 34 yards a piece which is pretty poor. However, his biggest punt of the game was in the biggest moment. His longest on the day was a 48-yard punt that put the Ravens back on their 37-yard line with no timeouts left to try and mount a game-winning drive through the air with just 52 seconds left on the clock. In every facet of the game, Mike Tomlin was able to out-duel John Harbaugh to pull out a gritty win between the top two teams in the league.