Mike Tomlin Tuesday: The competitor in all of us is a little bit pissed off

Once again, it doesn’t seem like a Tuesday unless we are graced with words from Steelers’ head coach Mike Tomlin from his weekly press conference. Even though we got a surprise appearance on ESPN’s First Take last Monday which provided plenty of quotes, let’s take a look at some of the most interesting quotes Tomlin has given us this past season.

We’ve experienced several “Throwback Tomlin Tuesday” quotes so far this off-season. So far we have re-lived the following:

A nose guard is like Blockbuster video
We weren’t ready for prime time tonight
So that’s how you lay an egg
We’ve got to make plays
I’m not a doctor
We’re excited infusing him into the fold
You have to work in concert as a football team

As we continue trough the 2019 season, let’s go back to the weekly press conference leading up to the Steelers Week 4 game on Monday Night Football against the Cincinnati Bengals. During his opening statement, coach Tomlin talked about the teams frustrations with not being able to finish off games.

“We’ve lost two close ball games here the last two weeks,” Tomlin explained, “and we’ve had our opportunity. There’s a certain response that to comes with that. We recognize football is our game and our business is winning. We haven’t been handling business.”

After starting the season 0-3, the Steelers were in desperate need of a win going into Week 4. In the previous two losses, the Steelers had a lead in the second half each game and were within one score as the clock ticked down. With the Steelers playing at home on Monday night against the 0-3 Bengals, it was a good opportunity to get things right.

“We’ve got AFC North ball,” Tomlin said about the Steelers next matchup. “We’ve got Monday night ball. We’ve got a lot of things that naturally get you excited. But just an opportunity to get this group back into a stadium and continue to work on things that we need to work on in order to change our outcome. I think the competitor and all of us is a little bit excited about that. I also think the competitor in all of us is a little bit pissed off and appropriately so.”

It was good to hear that the head coach felt the team was extremely frustrated with their inability to finish off games to secure the victory. Obviously, the fans were feeling the same way. With Ben Roethlisberger out for the year and the Steelers newest quarterback already 0-1, it was important for the rest of the team to come out with a chip on their shoulder in order to finally get their first victory of the season.

“Again, we’ve got to do what we’ve got to do to close ball games out and to get ball games started faster. Obviously the start doesn’t define games but we’re really putting ourselves behind the eight ball with our inability to win some position downs and some really manageable possession downs.”

Unfortunately, having another slow start was still a problem for the Steelers’ offense as the defense held the Bengals on their opening possession only to fumble the ball right back to them on their second offensive play. Digging deep, the defense stepped up and held the Bengals to a field goal even though they started their possession in the red zone. From that point on, the Steelers scored 27 straight points for their first win of the season.