A day after loss, Mike Tomlin says Steelers need to play better to make officials’ calls irrelevant

It didn’t take long into Mike Tomlin’s weekly news conference Monday for the Pittsburgh Steelers coach to address the officiating that had been such a significant topic of discussion since his team’s loss Sunday.

“I know a lot has been written or said or asked about the officiating and so forth,” Tomlin said. “Here’s my mindset and our mindset regarding officiating: It is our desire to win definitively, where potentially controversial calls are less significant. That’s what good teams do. That’s what elite teams do. It is our desire to be a good and elite team so that we are not as flimsy and become a component of some debatable calls and things of that nature.”

The most notable calls that were scrutinized during the Steelers’ loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars involved an offsides on a Steelers field-goal try and the lack of a roughing the passer flag when Kenny Pickett was driven into the ground by the Jaguars’ Adam Gotsis. The latter non-flag drew attention because it came after the Steelers’ Keanu Neal was penalized for roughing the passer for a hit that appeared less egregious.

Pickett suffered a rib injury on the Gotsis hit and did not return to the game.

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Steelers receiver Diontae Johnson was vocal about his displeasure with the officiating Sunday, saying, “The refs were killing us the whole game. … They cost us the game.”

Tomlin said he had not heard Johnson’s comments and declined to react to them.

Tomlin also did not give a substantial response when asked if he believed the offseason emphasis on the neutral zone on plays from scrimmage contributed to the flag on Isaac Seumalo on the field goal Sunday.

“I’m going to keep those comments to myself,” Tomlin said. “I acknowledge there was some (questionable officiating) in the game,” Tomlin said earlier, “but there’s some of that in most games to be quite honest with you. Things that are capable of being reviewed or assessed in that way.

“I like to focus my energies on the things that are within our control, the quality of our execution, and I think when you do that, definitely, it makes those discussions less relevant. And that’s the point that I want to make to our football team moving forward. You just simply have to make those discussions less significant by the quality of your play, by winning and winning definitively. And, obviously, we didn’t play well enough for that to transpire.”

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