Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin met the media following the 19-6 win Sunday over the New York Jets and below is a transcript of what he had to say.
Tomlin: It’s a significant win for us to get that started for 2013. I told the guys in the locker room there was nothing mystical about it. We maintained possession of the football and we got the football. In particular we got the football in the red area and that took points off the board. That was significant. Big splash plays defensively; maintained possession of the ball offensively. Hung together in the midst of the natural adversity football games present. Hopefully this is a springboard of things to come. That is going to be our intention as we look at this like we looked at the other four before it with the sole purpose of getting better for our next opportunity. We look forward to getting home and playing winning football in front of our fans. We’ve got a lot of work to do in order to make that occur. We look forward to getting back to work. It’s a good feeling, not like you won the lottery, but it’s still a good feeling nonetheless.
A couple of major injuries potentially. Levi Brown got hurt in pregame warm-ups. We are going to evaluate his triceps. David Johnson, hand/wrist area, we have a potential major injury there. We have to get that evaluated. Other than that some normal bumps and bruises associated with playing.
What about the injury to Brett Keisel?
He had ribs of some kind. We will take a look at it. He is probably going to be limited during the course of the week. He should perk up toward the end of next week. We’ll see, though.
What did you think of Ben (Roethlisberger)?
He made the necessary plays. He was him. He did a great job of communicating. Sometimes when you are in hostile environments on the road it becomes difficult. Aside from his play I thought he did a nice job of communicating with players and staff in the midst of it all throughout the game.
Did the offensive line and everyone kind of settle down after the first couple of series?
That’s the way it should occur when you are on the road. At times communication is tough, particularly when you come out of the locker room. You have to deal with it, settle into rhythm and I thought we did that.
Re: The defense shutting them out in the second half.
I thought the significant plays were the situational football plays, the red zone plays.
The red zone interception by Ryan Clark, the red zone interception by Lawrence Timmons after Jarvis Jones applied pressure to the quarterback. There are plays and then there are significant plays and splash plays, and situational plays. Today we made splash plays and that’s why we were able to win.
Do you feel like you rattled Geno Smith?
I will let them speak to that. I thought we played in the manner of which we wanted to.
Was your message going into bye week more passionate than normal?
Do you think the circumstances dictated it?
Probably
Okay.
Did you get an explanation at the end of the first half how they were able to have had time to kick the field goal?
That occurs sometimes when you are the visiting team in terms of communicating with the white hats.
With Levi Brown is there a concern that it’s the same injury he had in Arizona?
I don’t want to speculate. I will categorize it as potentially serious. We’ll have to evaluate him. I’ll let the doctors do that.
How do you think Kelvin Beachum played at left tackle?
I thought he was above the line like we all were. Today we are winners. We’ll evaluate tomorrow.
Re: Were there any x-rays on David Johnson?
Not that I know of. Not saying it didn’t occur. I just don’t have that information.
How important is it for a quarterback to have consistency?
I think it’s important for any professional football player to have consistency. It’s often times not what we are capable of as far as our ceiling, but what does our floor look like. And all good solid professionals have a good solid floor and have consistent performances.
