Mike Tomlin isn’t giving Aaron Rodgers a pass by saying his veteran quarterback simply had an “off night” in Pittsburgh’s lopsided loss to the Los Angeles Chargers.
Then again, the NFL’s longest-tenured head coach also isn’t worried about the NFL’s oldest active player bouncing back from one of the worst performances of his 21-year career.
Rodgers completed just 16 of 31 passes for 161 yards with a touchdown in garbage time and two interceptions — one of which smacked off the hands of wide receiver Calvin Austin III — while also being sacked for a safety in a 25-10 setback that wasn’t even as close as the final score might indicate.
“Sunday night was what it was,” Tomlin said Tuesday. “But I have no long-term reservations about his ability to play the position and play the position at a high level for us.”
Tomlin credited the Chargers for getting the better of his offense, but he doesn’t think his unit is getting too predictable, even with the AFC North-leading Steelers (5-4) finishing with under 300 total yards for the third straight week.
Instead, he pointed to an inability to extend drives on third downs. Pittsburgh has converted just 36% of its third downs on the season, including 21% (7 of 33) over the last three weeks. Tomlin put the onus on his coaching staff to find ways to make opponents pay for double-teaming wide receiver DK Metcalf, who has just 10 catches for 96 yards over that period.
“We haven’t done a good enough job of putting others other than DK in position to win and win big, and they haven’t won big enough,” Tomlin said. “We’ve got to do a better job there.”
The Steelers declined to make a significant trade to upgrade the receiving corps behind Metcalf, opting instead to hold on to their significant draft capital. The club did sign two-time Super Bowl winner Marquez Valdez-Scantling to the practice squad last week.
Tomlin didn’t rule out the possibility of Valdez-Scantling working his way onto the active roster on Sunday when Cincinnati (3-6) visits Acrisure Stadium.
Either way, Tomlin would like to see the offense create more big plays. The Steelers only have a handful of pass receptions that have gone for more than 40 yards this season, and all but one of them came on plays where most of the yardage came after the catch.
“If you’re not doing a good enough job on possession downs, you need to have some big-play splash,” Tomlin said.
Extending drives or flipping the field would provide Pittsburgh the opportunity to give running back Jaylen Warren more work. Warren has averaged a healthy 5.0 yards per touch over his last five games, but he hasn’t had more than 20 touches in a single contest since September.
“We win more third downs, we’ll get Jaylen more touches, it’s as simple as that,” Tomlin said. “Jaylen was having the trajectory of a good day in LA, but we didn’t convert enough third downs for you to really feel it.”
The Steelers could be relatively healthy as they try to avenge a 33-31 upset loss to Joe Flacco and the Bengals last month. Veteran left guard Isaac Seumalo is expected to practice after sitting out the Chargers game with a pectoral injury. Safety Jabrill Peppers may also be available after being inactive against Los Angeles with a quadricep issue and wide receiver Scotty Miller has been cleared to practice after undergoing finger surgery.
Pittsburgh will not have safety Juan Thornhill, who was cut on Monday after Tomlin said the veteran’s play wasn’t “up to snuff.” Thornhill began the season as the starting safety next to DeShon Elliott but saw his playing time steadily decrease, even with the Steelers so banged up at the position that they started Kyle Dugger just days after being acquired in a trade with New England.
The defense overall was solid against the Chargers, though it failed to produce a takeaway for the fourth time in five games. Pittsburgh is just 2-3 in that stretch as it struggles to find the “complementary football” that fueled its 4-1 start.
If the turnovers don’t come, Pittsburgh will need Rodgers and the offense to deliver in a way that’s been hard to come by since that shootout in Cincinnati in mid-October.
“We’ve got to put together a better plan,” Tomlin said. “We’ve got to make more plays.”
Reporting by The Associated Press.
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