Mike Tomlin is a proponent of the NFL’s crackdown on taunting — and not because such a call benefited the Pittsburgh Steelers on Monday night in a 29-27 victory against the Chicago Bears.

“We’re just trying to clean our game up,” Tomlin said Tuesday at his weekly news conference.

Former Steelers linebacker Cassius Marsh, cut by the team at the end of the preseason, was flagged after sacking Ben Roethlisberger on third down with the Steelers leading by three points and less than four minutes remaining in the game.

After celebrating the sack with a spinning martial arts kick, Marsh took several steps toward the Steelers sideline and glared at the bench before turning and retreating from the field. Referee Tony Corrente, who was accused of “hip-checking” by Marsh after the play, threw the penalty flag. Instead of punting, the Steelers were rewarded with 15 yards of field position and a first down at the Chicago 39.

The Steelers got a field goal on the drive to take a 26-20 lead with 2 minutes, 52 seconds left. The Bears scored a go-ahead touchdown, but the Steelers answered with Chris Boswell’s 40-yard field goal with 26 seconds to play.

Upon the recommendation of the league’s competition committee, of which Tomlin is a member, the NFL announced in August it was placing an emphasis on enforcing taunting calls. The decision was made to eliminate antics that are not “within the spirit and intent of this rule and not representative of the respect to opponents and others on the field,” the NFL said in a video that was released to all 32 teams.

“We embrace the responsibility that comes with being the role models that we are,” Tomlin said. “With this game being played at the highest level, we understand the people that play at a lower level watch us and often mimic the things we do and how we conduct ourselves.

“Largely as a league, and the competition committee specifically, there was a desire to improve in that area. That has been expressed to our guys. We’ve been shown examples of that through team development, and we continue to reinforce that as examples in a negative way turn up during the course of this journey for us and for others.”

The taunting call against Marsh was the 27th such infraction throughout the league this season, according to NFLpenalties.com. Officials called 11 taunting penalties in the first two weeks, which was one more than the entire 2020 season.

Marsh’s infraction was the third called against the Bears this season, tying them with Jacksonville and Seattle for the league high. The Steelers are one of 14 teams that haven’t been called for taunting as the season nears its midpoint.

Marsh faces a $10,300 fine. He said he didn’t say anything toward the Steelers bench and was surprised he was penalized.

“I think it’s pretty clear to everyone who saw it that I wasn’t taunting,” he said. “I’ve been doing that celebration my whole career. It’s just sad to see something like that happen in a close game like that. It’s just rough. I don’t want to say too much because you know how it is.”

Marsh was upset Corrente thrust his hip into the linebacker as he was returning to the Bears sideline. Corrente then threw the penalty flag he had been clutching in his hand.

“I got hip-checked by the ref, and it’s pretty clear,” Marsh said. “If I were to do that to a ref or even touch a ref, we’d get kicked out of the game and possibly suspended or fined. I think it was incredibly inappropriate.”

Corrente, who turns 70 this week, has worked as an NFL official since 1995 and has been a referee since 1998. His most high-profile assignment was as referee of Super Bowl XLI between the Bears and Indianapolis Colts.

Corrente told a pool reporter that the contact he made with Marsh did not lead to his throwing the flag.

“That had nothing to do with it,” he said. “It was the taunting aspect.”

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