Mike Tomlin Post Game Press Conference – Raiders – Week 3

Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin met the media for his post game press conference following the 34-31 week 3 loss to the Oakland Raiders. Below is a recap sand the audio.

Tomlin said that he tips his hat to Raiders and that they played winning ball. He said that they can\’t expect to win games when they play like they did today. Tomlin says that we have to chew on this one for a while and that it is not going to go down easily. He said that the loss will not define us. They have a lot of work to do in several areas, said Tomlin.

Tomlin said he intended on going for it the whole time on 4th down and that he was not going to punt the football, because they hadnt stopped the Raiders offense enough in the second half.

Opening Comment: That was a poor performance by us. When you play like that you lose football games. Not enough stops on defense. We turned the ball over on offense. We gave up a big return or two which provided field position, a shot in the arm in the kicking game and allowed them to respond to some scores.  I would like to tip my hat to the Oakland Raiders. They played winning ball. That is not the style of ball that we desire to play. You are going to lose when you play like that, as we did today. We have got to chew on this one for a while, obviously. It’s not going to go down easy, as it should not go down easy. It won’t define us. We’ll go back to work. We’ll continue to search for areas of improvement, which are many.

Did you intend to go for it all along on fourth down?
I intended to go all along. I wasn’t going to punt the football to them. We hadn’t stopped them enough in the second half to do that. It was inside of one. If you can’t get inside of one you deserve to lose games. I won’t hesitate to do that.

Was there any reason you weren’t able to stop them defensively or was it lack of execution?
Not very good execution by us, but at the same token you tip your hat to them because they did execute in critical moments and made the necessary plays. I don’t want to take anything away from them, but obviously we expect more and better from ourselves.

Did you ever think about slowing down the pace in the fourth quarter?
I wasn’t concerned about the pace; I was concerned about our quality of play and our ability to maintain possession of the ball. We turned the ball over some and that was a defining factor for us at least offensively.

Antonio Brown had a couple of drops and one got away. Your thoughts on that with the game he had?
We turned the ball over. We can’t do that, not only him but us collectively. He wasn’t the only one.