Time For A Change

By: Mike Rifkin

On Thursday night the Minnesota Vikings defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers 36-28.  The Steelers battled back in the second half and even had an opportunity to tie the game, but Harrison Smith made a tremendous play. But the play people will talk about is that in the final moment Chase Claypool got a fourth down conversion and made a first down signal. Here is the problem: the Steelers were trying to spike the ball and they were out of timeouts. Earlier in the game Claypool was called for Unsportsmanlike Conduct, Coach Mike Tomlin said postgame that he benched Claypool because of the penalty. Claypool did lead the team with 8 catches for 93 yards. This wasn’t the first time Claypool and Tomlin saw eye to eye.

In November Claypool suggested that the team should play music during practice to make it more fun. Tomlin’s response was “Claypool plays wide out and I’ll let him do that. I’ll formulate the practice approach and I think that division of labor is appropriate.” You would have thought the Steelers would have learned from the antics of 2020. In 2020 there were viral videos of wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster doing TikTok dances pregame. One game Smith Schuster danced on the Bengals logo and that game he had three catches 15 yards and a fumble. Tomlin said after that game he “he was aware and planned to talk to Juju.” Tomlin went on to say “But we’re professionals. I doubt any of those antics and things of that nature are legitimate motivating factors as you step into professional stadiums. But it’s about respect so we will have a conversation. But I understand it’s about the quality of play inside the white lines.” The Steelers had Antonio Brown and that is not the hole we are going down right now, but his antics rubbed off on Smith Schuster whose antics rubbed off on Claypool. 

The Steelers last season started the season 11-0 before losing four of five to end the regular season before getting manhandled by the Cleveland Browns 48-37. It was 28-0 in the first quarter, but after all the ups and downs the Steelers said they were ok with bringing back basically the same group this season and after last night’s loss have a record of 6-6-1 including a sweep at the hands of the Bengals. The Steelers are known for stability, they have had three coaches in 30 years. Maybe it’s time for the Steelers to blow this up. Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has already talked about this being his last season according to reports. But maybe Roethlisberger isn’t the only one to blame. I know Mike Tomlin has never had a losing record, this year that can change. The Steelers have been one of the standard setters in the NFL over the last 15 seasons, but maybe it’s time for a rebuild and let Ben walk into the sunset and have a new voice of direction because this is not Bill Cowher or Chuck Noll’s Steelers.