Tim Benz: Mike Tomlin's critique of offense more than a ploy to distract from defensive woes

During their 35-25 loss to the Green Bay Packers Sunday, the Steelers had five offensive possessions in the first half.

Four of them resulted in trips that penetrated at least the Green Bay 40-yard line. Yet only one touchdown was on the board by halftime, resulting in a 16-7 advantage that probably should’ve been greater.

On two occasions since the game ended, coach Mike Tomlin began public comments about the game by citing those failed drives as a reason for the team’s loss.

“We can’t settle for field goals against good people, and that was kind of an issue throughout,” Tomlin said after Sunday night’s loss. “We got behind the chains somewhat. We got into scoring territory, be it a penalty or a lost yardage first play, and it was uphill from there. We settled for field goals. You’re just not going to win close ball games when you’re doing that.”

Tomlin began his Tuesday news conference on a similar note before eventually turning his thoughts to the major talking point from every sports fan in Pittsburgh these days, a porous defense that hemorrhaged 454 yards.

“You’re always a little bit concerned when you’re settling for field goals when you’re playing good people,” Tomlin reiterated. “Seems like touchdowns are how it gets done in our business at this level, so it was a little bit less than comfortable at halftime, settling for three field goals. I think those drives were stopped by penalties and negative plays on first-and-10. That put us in some second-and-long circumstances. We didn’t perform very well in second-and-long.”

Some have theorized that Tomlin did this in an effort to distract from criticism of the heavily maligned defense, a unit he has much greater agency over on a week-to-week basis.

My guess is that those people are right.

But that doesn’t mean Tomlin’s point is incorrect or unimportant. Quarterback Aaron Rodgers advanced similar complaints Sunday night.

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“We aren’t going to win a lot of games when we’re so bad on third downs,” Rodgers said. “(Chris Boswell) bailed us out on four incredible kicks, but when you are playing good teams, you need to score (touchdowns). We stalled out in the high red zone.”

Here’s exactly how those advances into Green Bay territory ran out of steam.

On the Steelers’ first drive, the offense got to Green Bay’s 23-yard line before receiver DK Metcalf was flagged for offensive pass interference on second down. That miscue was followed by a reception from Jaylen Warren that gained no yards, and Rodgers took a sack on third down.

Two trips later for the offense, Arthur Smith’s unit got to Green Bay’s 32 before Carrington Valentine helped break up a deep shot that Metcalf couldn’t secure on a third-and-3. Boswell kicked on the next snap.

With roughly eight minutes left from Green Bay’s 30, a first-down run by Jaylen Warren went for a 5-yard loss, and the Steelers couldn’t recover from that, settling for another successful Boswell attempt after a third-down completion to Jonnu Smith still came up 5 yards short of the sticks.

The Steelers owned time of possession in the first half, holding the ball for 17 minutes, 48 seconds, but they were just 1 for 5 on third downs before halftime and 1 for 10 for the game.

Fortunately for the Steelers, Boswell got points on each drive by way of field goals from 56, 50 and 48 yards or else the margin of defeat could’ve been even greater.

Rodgers pointed to those failures between the whistles on Green Bay’s side of the field as the reason why the Steelers came up short, not Smith’s play calling or his menu of plays in the high red zone.

“We hurt ourselves with penalties. We had opportunities to put ourselves in better situations, and it’s just execution,” Rodgers said. “Art has done a great job calling plays. We had a couple of busts. We had a couple of opportunities we didn’t come up with. I missed a throw. We can’t expect Boz to bail us out like that every single week.”

For as potent as Green Bay’s offense proved to be in the second half of that game, this week’s opponent at Acrisure Stadium is even more explosive. The Indianapolis Colts come to town at 7-1 with the highest scoring offense in the NFL at 33.8 points per game. That unit also leads football at 385.3 yards per contest.

With the defense taking on water as badly as it has the last two weeks — 68 points and 924 yards allowed — the Steelers need seven points as a buffer every time they get close to the end zone, not three.

“Just being able to sustain drives. Not being sporadic in the play-making we have or the execution on offense,” Metcalf said. “The defense has to stop us. We can’t stop ourselves. They’ve got to line up. They don’t know our routes. They don’t know our plays. We just have to execute them better than they can stop them.”

Seeing as how the defense hasn’t been able to stop anyone of late, that’s good advice for the whole offense to follow.