By Ed Bouchette, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Peter Diana / Post-GazetteSteelers defensive end Brett Keisel goes for the ball after Warner fumbled.It may come as a surprise to some Steelers fans that coach Mike Tomlin expected to lose.
Not necessarily to lose the past Sunday as the Steelers did to the Arizona Cardinals, 21-14, but to lose a game somewhere along the line.
And guess what? He expects to lose again.
"Believe it or not, I anticipated that at some point I would lose a game," Tomlin said yesterday at his weekly news conference. "It may happen again at some point.
"We compete. I don't mind that at all. That is why I love this business. I love the feeling you get when you come in here every week and you have to show and prove on weekends. Sometimes you don't, sometimes you do. You better show and prove more than you don't. I accept that as part of this business. I love that. That is what drives me and I hope that is what drives this football team."
Tomlin even seems to love his news conferences, something Bill Cowher notoriously detested. He doesn't flinch and issues honest opinions, sometimes brutally honest. He does not point fingers, but he points to problems as well as to areas that are doing well.
For example, he said he dealt with cornerback Ike Taylor's taunting penalty, which helped an Arizona scoring drive, on Sunday and again on Monday.
"We can't have penalties like that," Tomlin said. "Those kinds of penalties are for young-dumb guys and we can't be young and dumb, whether it is a veteran player like Ike or whether it is a young guy. It is selfish and it is not part of winning football."
It was just one in a series of opinions that have made Tomlin's news conferences informative and entertaining in a different way than were Cowher's. Long carried live by radio and television locally and transmitted by satellite around the country and on the NFL Network, Steelers news conferences have taken a different turn with Tomlin front and center.
Among his opinions yesterday:
The offensive line played "OK."
But ... "We have to be better than OK if we want to be successful. That evaluation could characterize a lot of our performances on Sunday."
He watched not a stitch of the Monday night game between AFC North opponent Cincinnati and December opponent New England. He was working.
"Very rarely do I really watch 'Monday Night Football.' "
Wide receiver Nate Washington blew a "hot route" when quarterback Ben Roethlisberger quickly threw him a ball under pressure on a slant and Washington never looked for it.
"That was a hot route. Nate just has to get his head around."
There were 11 penalties, many of them before the snap, such as the four false starts by four different offensive linemen. It causes problems to mushroom.
"You get penalized. You get behind the chains. You're not able to establish rhythm with the running game. They get in wide stances and get to foaming at the mouth and ready to rush the quarterback. The crowd gets into it. Communication gets tough. It snowballs and that is why I enjoy playing at Heinz Field."
Allen Rossum averages 3.0 yards on seven punt returns in four games.
"By no means are we satisfied with where we are in that area. We have to continue to do a better job and grow, in terms of giving Allen Rossum a clean look to get after people."
Complaints by fans and the media that he has challenged just one call in four games and perhaps should not have challenged that one mean little to him.
"I don't worry about the elevator music. I hear it, but I don't in terms of the decisions that we make. In terms of that play, I would challenge it again. You're talking about seven points on the board and we thought we got the ball out pretty quickly."
Tomlin was referring to Jerheme Urban's 6-yard touchdown pass reception in the third quarter that tied the game, 7-7.
Tomlin said he did not challenge the return on James Harrison's fumble recovery because his coaches upstairs "saw that he clearly fell over their lineman."
He's no Mike Gundy, but Tomlin showed he's also capable of defending a young player, even if rookie Lawrence Timmons looked as though he ran out of bounds on purpose and then ran back in while covering a punt Sunday.
"I would like to think that he is aware of that rule. We will move forward. It was a mistake. He needs to learn from that. Things happen to young guys in the heat of the battle. I think if you sat in the comforts of this room and maybe asked him the rule, he could tell you. Sometimes when the ball is snapped it is played out a little differently. That is part of being young."
First published on October 3, 2007 at 12:00 am
Ed Bouchette can be reached at ebouchette@post-gazette.com.
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