No one expects Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin to be overly animated in his postgame press conferences. We’ve joked before about robot Mike Tomlin and how matter-of-fact he is, offering almost nothing in terms of a narrative or editorial on his team’s performance. This is true whether it is a win or a loss.
But on Sunday, Tomlin was particularly somber, even for him. Offering very little other than some field possession issues in the second half as the catalyst for Pittsburgh’s collapse against the Cincinnati Bengals. I won’t go so far as to say Tomlin sounds like a defeated man but having watched over a decade of his press conferences, this was a version of him rarely seen.
Even the players who were interviewed after the game seemed more defeated than usual despite this being the team’s seventh loss of the year. Typically there is talk of getting back to work, getting back into the lab, making corrections and getting ready for next week. This was not the mood after this week’s loss by Tomlin and the rest of the team. We will see if Pittsburgh can bounce back from this like they have before this season or does this loss linger for the rest of the season?
