Steelers HC Mike Tomlin on defensive struggles: ‘I just thought they wore down’
After the Pittsburgh Steelers 16-14 loss to the Baltimore Ravens, head coach Mike Tomlin was solemn even by his standards in the postgame press conference. It had to be tough to watch his defense get run on all game long.
Tomlin noted that he thought the defense just wore down at the end and couldn’t contain Ravens running back J.J. Dobbins. This is a point linebacker T.J. Watt refuted in his postgame press conference but it seemed pretty obvious.
Even before Ravens starting quarterback Tyler Huntley went down with an injury, the Ravens weren’t a real threat to throw the football. But knowing that, when Huntley was injured and undrafted rookie Anthony Brown replaced him, the threat to throw went down even more.
At that point, the Ravens offensive line just imposed its will on and undersized Steelers defensive front. There’s no denying this group was spent but this is something many of us have talked about going back for several seasons about how this group isn’t big enough or strong enough to hold up when teams really want to run the ball.
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