Maybe Mike Tomlin should have gone to his bullpen after all.
Maybe it would have been a good idea to bring in Mitch Trubisky — his new long reliever — and hope the quarterback he signed in free agency could do for the offense what he did a week earlier against Tampa Bay.
Maybe it would have resulted in a victory that kept alive the belief the season might still be salvaged, despite an offense that flops around like an Atlantic salmon.
Instead, it resulted in another near-miss disappointment, a 16-10 defeat to the Miami Dolphins that was all about interceptions — the ones Kenny Pickett threw and the ones the Steelers failed to make.
"They had three turnovers, we had zero," defensive end Cam Heyward said. "You look at that as the difference in the game."
Especially when two of the turnovers — a pair of Pickett interceptions — came on the last two possessions of the game with the Steelers deep in Dolphins territory and looking as though they might come all the way back from an early 13-0 deficit.
The first was a poor decision on a pass intended for Diontae Johnson. The second was a mental miscommunication when Johnson turned in and Pickett threw to the boundary. They stopped what had been impressive drives orchestrated by Pickett, who completed 11 of 17 passes for 111 yards and produced seven first downs on the drives. It included a big-time 21-yard throw to tight end Pat Freiermuth on 4th-and-6 on the final drive.
When Tomlin was asked to assess Pickett's performance, he said, "I thought he was highly competitive ... played to win." That's a little different response from the one he issued three years ago when he benched first-year starter Mason Rudolph in the second half in Cincinnati and was asked why he went to Duck Hodges: "He has not killed us," Tomlin said.
If nothing else, Pickett's second three-interception game in four appearances has pointed to the difference between the daring way the rookie from Pitt is trying to perform and the cautious style Trubisky employed. Trubisky threw only two interceptions in 128 attempts but was often criticized for throwing the ball away instead of trying to make a play.
Some of that, though, might have come in handy in the final three minutes in Miami.
"We don't want the game to end like that," running back Najee Harris said. "We'll have to fix what we can, make as many corrections as we can, and if we're out in that position again, we can answer the right way."
Typically, Tomlin wouldn't live with such mistakes at the expense of losing games. But this is the decision he made three games ago, and changing now isn't as easy as it was when Trubisky was benched. Pickett is a first-round pick and the team's future, and going backward now doesn't seem to be an option.
Of course, Pickett's mistakes are not the sole reason for the offensive woes. After all, the Steelers have failed to score more than 17 points in 12 of their past 24 games, dating to the start of last season. And that's using four different quarterbacks.
The question is, how long will Tomlin continue to sacrifice victories at this rate?
