The Pittsburgh Steelers dropped to 0-3 on the season thanks to their 40-23 loss Sunday night to Chicago Bears and below is the transcript of the Mike Tomlin press conference following the game courtesy of steelers.com.
Mike Tomlin: Obviously, you’re not going to win football games when you’re turning the ball over in the manner in which we did. It produced direct points. It produced other point opportunities. You’re not going to beat anybody in the NFL playing like that. We’ve got to get better. We know it. We understand it. It doesn’t make it any less painful but that’s just the reality of where we are. Not enough tonight. Not enough to overcome that. I don’t know if it will ever be enough to overcome that type of turnover deficit. We’ve got to take better care of the football. We acknowledge that those guys are one of the best in the world at getting it. We talked about it all week, but it did change the outcome of this football game, and for that we were below the line, obviously. We’ll continue to move forward in an effort to get better in that regard. Outcomes of games are simple in the NFL. It’s black and white. You’ve got to ring the scoreboard up, you’ve got to maintain possession of the ball and you’ve got to stop people. Obviously, we’re not putting together enough of a combination of those things to be victorious at this point.
Did you see some positives from the offense, or is that almost negated because of the turnovers?
You can’t turn the ball over like that. Obviously, there were some positives, but way too much negative, particularly from a turnover standpoint to be victorious, and that’s what we come in here to do is to win.
Re: Rotating the tackles:
They hadn’t played well enough to justify otherwise. We’re going to look at viable guys. We’re going to turn the stones over in an effort to find a winning formula, and we’re not going to be bashful about that. Kelvin Beachum has earned an opportunity to play in the rotation. He did tonight because of it.
Is it possible that because of the way the offense struggled in the first two games that when Ben Roethlisberger sees certain opportunities he is not as careful as he might be?
No, I don’t believe that’s the case. We played to win tonight. We didn’t bring the baggage of past performances, per say, with us. We have to do a better job of taking care of the football, period.
As a coach you know what needs to be done and you can make the changes. How do you process what you can do to keep everybody focused on what you need to do to get out of this?
I expect them to. I’m not going to encourage them to. I’m not going to pat them on the back for sticking together, for continuing to work or for being mentally tough. I expect them to, and that’s what I just told them in there.
How did you think Heath Miller looked? Was he on any sort of a snap count?
He was on a snap count for obvious reasons. It was his first action. It was a good start. We’ll continue to progress with him. Obviously, it’s a positive thing having him back in uniform. He was an asset to us tonight.
You have a different week this week with going to London. What is the challenge there?
It’s not different for us until we get there. We don’t go until Thursday after work is done. So, between now and then it’s business as usual. That’s the approach we need to take. We’ve got a lot of work to do, obviously. So that is the approach we’ll take. We’ll deal with London when we get there.
You didn’t use Felix Jones after the fumble. Was it because of the fumble?
That was an element of it. Obviously, he took a legitimate hit there and we wanted to make sure he was okay. He was. He did get back in the game, but not a significant opportunity to contribute after that. Obviously, the game got a little bit one-sided at that point.
Was it just one of those nights in terms of Roethlisberger’s performance and turning the ball over so much?
We’ve got to take better care of the football. I’m not trying to characterize it in any way other than that.
