If you want to have an issue with the "culture" Tomlin has created, then fine.
But come on, this is the NFL. If the Browns, a team who hadn't been to the playoffs in years playing against their biggest rival, needed what JuJu said in order to "play even harder," that's pathetic.
They had everything to gain and nothing to lose. Years of mediocrity and being the punching bag of the AFC North with the opportunity to knock out their "big brother."
Not condoning what JuJu said but the motivation was already there for them to play hard and leave it out there.
Did JuJu add to it a little bit? Sure. But I'm also not a believer that bulletin board material exists. People will always talk smack, especially in rivalry games. If you can't get out of bed ready to play playoff football in the NFL, shame on you.
CLE was ready, PIT wasn't.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
But I'm not one to generally overreact over football-related things.
And guess what?
Yesterday's loss isn't going to change that for me.
And that is the mindset I'm going with into the offseason.
Things definitely need to change and I feel confident that they will because there is plenty of heat, not a lot of money, contracts that are up or in flux, and a stale foundation that we have seen crumble.
People will want to point the finger at 1 singluar issue but the truth of the matter is that there wasn't 1 singular issue that led to this collapse. Every issue plays a hand with something else. From Tomlin all the way down to the bottom tier players. Lots of moving pieces.
The idea that you HAVE to have a 50-50 split running/passing the ball is a relatively outdated way of thinking in terms of today's offensive production.
The distribution of the Steelers' run/pass tendencies isn't really the issue. If they want to run the ball <20 times, fine.
All coaches would love to be able to deploy a completely balanced attack through the air and on the ground but history and statistics have shown us time and time again that you don't HAVE to be structured like that to have success. If you can move the ball and score, you win.
The biggest issue is their ineffectiveness/inefficiency in when they DO run the ball. If you want to be a pass heavy, 10 personnel team (which why wouldn't they want to with the weapons they have at WR/TE), so be it. But when you decide to run the ball, you can't average 1.5 YPC.