NFL coaches love to talk about “all three phases” of their team. Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin is no exception.

Although Tomlin probably didn’t want to talk about them much Sunday evening. Because even though his team’s 17-14 loss to New England was a close game, all three phases got outplayed at Acrisure Stadium.

In this week’s “Airing of Grievances,” the Steelers offense, defense and special teams all take some heat.

In every case, deservedly so.

Deadly drops: With just over four minutes to go in the third quarter, Cameron Sutton dropped a sure interception. The Steelers defense held up and forced a punt anyway.

But Steelers punt returner Gunner Olszewski muffed the return, and the Patriots recovered.

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— New England Patriots (@Patriots) September 18, 2022

That led to a Damien Harris touchdown run.

Here’s something else to complain about along those lines. Early in the game, Patriots punt returner Myles Bryant also muffed a punt. It was just outside of his own end zone. He picked it up in the end zone but was tackled before getting out of it.

That’s not a safety. That’s a touchback. That’s a dumb rule.

Run defense got run down: After last year’s hideous performance, the Steelers rush defense performed pretty well against Joe Mixon and the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 1. It wasn’t bad for much of the game against the Patriots either.

But when the Patriots needed to run the ball late and work the clock in the fourth quarter, they easily got what they needed. Of the Patriots’ 124 rush yards in the game, 54 came on the final drive. Outside linebacker Malik Reed credited Patriots quarterback Mac Jones for checking out of — and into — various plays at the line of scrimmage during the final drive.

“At the line, he was checking a lot. He was seeing what we were in. He is a pretty smart guy. Once they had a feel for our adjustments, they were able to counteract those things,” Reed said.

Outside linebacker Alex Highsmith echoed that, noticing when Jones checked and seeing that the Patriots ended up running away from the tight end quite a bit on the final drive.

No Watt, no answer: The Steelers were 0-4-1 without T.J. Watt last year. They are 0-1 to begin this year.

With at least three more games to go.

Without Watt, the Steelers defense dropped from seven sacks against the Cincinnati Bengals to no sacks against the Patriots. And Jones isn’t exactly the most mobile quarterback in the NFL either.

Also, Jones wasn’t harassed into making bad decisions like Joe Burrow was last week in Cincinnati. Nor was there a threat of Jones getting a ball batted down on the left side of the defense, another area where Watt excels.

“I don’t think we had a sack today. T.J. is a great player for us. He’s obviously one of the best rushing off the edge. He’s a good player. We have a next-man-up mentality, but obviously we miss him out there,” safety Minkah Fitzpatrick said.

The Steelers tried to hunt and peck with various personnel combinations to replace Watt. Reed started. Rookie DeMarvin Leal got some looks rushing from the edge. Jamir Jones and Delontae Scott got a few snaps. But nothing amounted to much.

Without Watt to be concerned about on the left side of the defense, Highsmith did little on the right side.

“We can be better as a defense as a whole. Especially coming down to that last drive. I have to play better, too. That was far from what I wanted to do today,” Highsmith said.

Highsmith wound up with three tackles (one for a loss) and one quarterback hit.

Curious about George: If only the Steelers had spent a high-round draft pick on a dangerous, athletic wide receiver who could impact games.

Wait a minute.

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Oh yeah. They did. George Pickens. Remember him? He’s all we could talk about in the preseason. Yet in Game 1 in Cincinnati, he only had one catch on three targets. On Sunday, he only had — wait for it — one catch and three targets. That catch went for 23 yards.

After the loss, quarterback Mitch Trubisky admitted the Steelers aren’t using their second-round draft choice enough.

“We’ve got to get George involved. He’s super talented,” Trubisky said. “When everybody gets their touches, and we are moving the ball down the field, that’s when it feels good. But when you miss opportunities, that’s when it feels like this. And you don’t want to feel that again.”

Diontae Johnson led the Steelers with 10 targets, six catches and 57 yards.

Not down with third down: The Steelers were 7 of 11 on third downs in the first half. They were 1 of 4 in the second half.

That’s a big reason why the Steelers only possessed the ball for 26 minutes, 24 seconds and the Patriots had it for 33:36.

“In the second half, they out-executed us on third downs,” Trubisky said. “In the fourth quarter, it wasn’t good enough.”

Frankly, first and second down weren’t good enough either. The Steelers only averaged 4.2 yards per play, down from 4.4 per play a week ago. That was 29th in the league in Week 1.

Aside from all that, though, the Steelers were great, weren’t they?

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