No more mojo?: Why Mike Tomlin is really walking back his evaluation of the Steelers' offense

Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin took Pittsburgh reporters down a bit of a wandering path during his weekly press conference Tuesday afternoon.

In that setting last week, coming off two lousy offensive performances to open the season in games against the San Francisco 49ers and Cleveland Browns, Tomlin offered up this assessment.

“We’ve got to get that mojo that we had in the preseason, where we’re playing fast and fluid with confidence, individually and collectively. We’ve lost that, to be blunt, in the last several weeks,” Tomlin said in advance of Sunday’s 23-18 win against the Las Vegas Raiders.

This week, Tomlin got a natural follow-up question coming off the win. He was asked if one game was enough to say the offense got its “mojo” back and if it is more on track now.

“I’ll be really transparent with you,” Tomlin said. “I didn’t mean it last week when I said it. You guys asked me the question repeatedly in a bunch of different ways, and I had given you the same answer. And so, sometimes I just give you a colorful answer with a word like ‘mojo’ just so you guys can run with it, and we all can move on with our day. The guys who know me know there’s nothing mystical about performance from my mentality or our mentality. We work, we improve, and then we go play.”

First of all, I’m surprised it only took 17 years for Tomlin to admit to all of us in the media that he’ll simply make stuff up in his press conferences to get through them and occasionally just give us answers that he doesn’t mean because they look good on a quote sheet.

I mean, I think we’ve all been aware of that. It’s just nice to have it out in the open now.

But I apologize for interrupting, Coach. You were saying something about feeding us a steaming hot pile of horse pucky? Please, do go on.

“We’ve got to stand in settings like this and absorb a lot of questions; they get repetitive. So, I gave you a little something. I don’t subscribe to ‘mojo’ or intangible-like things and all of that BS. We’ve just got to work harder, or we’ve got to put together better plans. The guys have got to understand those plans and make subsequent plays. But oftentimes, when I’m asked questions along those lines, those are the answers I give, and you guys keep asking the same questions. And so, I just give you something like ‘mojo’ so you can run with it,” Tomlin continued.

Well, we did run with it. And we ran with it because whether Tomlin meant it or not, it was true.

That offense had no mojo for the first two weeks of the season. I’m not even sure how much they have now just because they scored 23 points on a sub-mediocre Las Vegas defense.

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But let’s clear up one important detail from Tomlin’s version of events. During last Tuesday’s press conference, the first time he mentioned the offense losing its “mojo” was during his opening statements.

Specifically, it was 10 sentences — or 43 seconds — into his opening statements. I’m not sure how the questions about his offense could’ve been deemed “repetitive” if none had been asked yet.

Now, maybe Tomlin meant that media questions about the team’s poor offensive performance had been repetitive from his San Francisco postgame press conference, through his Tuesday presser in advance of the Browns game, then again after the team needed two defensive touchdowns to barely beat the Browns. So that’s why he invented “mojo” as a bone he could toss to us media dogs during his presser leading into the Las Vegas trip.

OK. That may make more sense.

But let me respond to Tomlin by saying many in the Pittsburgh media corps are just as tired of asking about the franchise’s sputtering offense as he is having to come up with answers regarding it.

Let alone having to watch it and write/talk about it.

Because it hasn’t just been three weeks of an embryonic 2023 season, this dialogue has been going on since midway through the 2020 campaign.

Trust me, Mike, I’d love to go back to the good ol’ days of “How long are you planning to stick with Antwon Blake at cornerback?” But this is the hand your team is dealing us right now. The franchise hasn’t had a 400-yard day since the playoff loss to Cleveland that ended the covid year.

Tomlin didn’t just spoon-feed us that “mojo” quote to shut up — or redirect — the media. He did it because he didn’t have the answers to the real problems.

He knew that after two games against the Niners and Browns, his O-line wasn’t as good as expected. His receivers weren’t as open as they probably think they are. His top running back can’t make something out of nothing and hasn’t made enough of the opportunities he has had. And the QB wasn’t very good in any phase.

Instead of admitting to all that, he just came up with “mojo.”

Frankly, a lot of those issues are still present but were just mollified because they played a lesser defense in Las Vegas last week.

So between now and whenever Tomlin and his coaching staff figure out his team’s offensive deficiencies, maybe he should try honesty instead of feeding us — in his words — “BS.” Because he isn’t just feeding it to the media.

He is feeding it to the franchise’s fans too.

Listen: Tim Benz and Joe Rutter wrap up Mike Tomlin’s press conference during Tuesday’s “Breakfast with Benz” podcast.