Week 4 Steelers All-22 Film Notes: Coaching Mistakes Piling Up

Jon details how the Steelers coaching staff let the team down in Week 4, how encouraging Justin Fields play was in response to struggle and reasonable expectations for the OL this season.

Week 4

Arthur Smith head-scratchers

• With 41 seconds left in the first half at the Colts 44, Arthur Smith ran the ball with Aaron Shampklin on 2nd-and-4. The run gained 5 yards and the Steelers didn’t use their final timeout, which meant the ball was snapped for the next play with 23 seconds left in the half. Fields was sacked, the timeout was burned and the team ended up settling for a 50-yard FG, which Boswell made because he’s awesome.

But the process was horrendous. As soon as that run was called, you took any shot at scoring a TD off the table. With 41 seconds left in the half and a timeout and already having marched into enemy territory, Smith threw in the towel on the drive. He knew they weren’t going to use a timeout after the run, which means he knew that he was at best going to have time to get into FG range, which they barely did.

Tomlin’s mismanagement of game situations hurt the team too. On 3rd/2 at end of the 1st quarter, Najee Harris picked up the first down. The officials marked it short, and those are rarely overturned, but the replay showed a clear angle of Harris getting the ball over the line to gain before his knees/elbows touched. Tomlin elected not to challenge, and the Steelers were stopped on 4th down. 

Moments later, Tomlin decides to challenge a 3rd down conversion catch by Josh Downs, even though one glimpse at the replay revealed it was a clear catch. So he lost the challenge and a timeout, which could have come in handy on that 2 min drive.