Things couldn’t have gone much worse for the Pittsburgh Steelers in their season opening loss to the San Francisco 49ers at Acrisure Stadium on Sunday.
They got completely man handled in the 30-7 blowout and coach Mike Tomlin didn’t sugarcoat anything during his postgame press conference, knowing that his team and coaching staff need to be better on all fronts.
“You can’t start games 0-5 on third down and think that you’re going to have the type of day that you desire,” Tomlin said. “You got to win the weighty downs, and it’s just more than just identifying that component, man. It was a failure on our part, in all areas. We got to coach better, we got to play better.”… We got kicked in the teeth today in a lot of ways.”
Sunday gave the Steelers a first-hand look at where they eventually want to be, going up against a team with high Super Bowl aspirations. And they were shown that they still have a ways to go.
San Francisco’s defense completely controlled the game as the Steelers’ offense managed to convert on just 5-of-15 third downs and they didn’t even manage to pick up a first down until there was less than two minutes remaining in the first half.
While he acknowledged the many struggles the offense had throughout the afternoon, running back Najee Harris is opting to be sort of optimistic following the loss, knowing that there’s still a lot of season to go.
“We got 16 games left,” Harris said. “We’re not blinking. It’s part of the sport. You’re going to win some, you’re going to lose some. All that matters is how you’re going to come back the next week and win that one. So we’re here, and we’re still excited for this year.”
Pittsburgh will take on the Cleveland Browns next week on Monday Night Football.
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