The Pittsburgh Steelers played their worst game of the season in Sunday night’s loss to the Los Angeles Chargers. As a result, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin wasn’t afraid to acknowledge just how bad things went for star quarterback Aaron Rodgers and the rest of his team as a whole.
Pittsburgh struggled at nearly every level on Sunday night. However, their biggest issue was clearly the lack of offensive production, along with costly turnovers that came back to bite them.
Rodgers had his worst game of the season thus far, completing just 51.6 percent of his passes and throwing two interceptions in the 25-10 loss.
When speaking with reporters after the game, Tomlin was predictably asked about Rodgers’ play. Instead of answering the question directly, Tomlin fired back with a passive-aggressive response that certainly hints at him not being overly pleased with how his quarterback played.
“How would you? Next question,” replied Tomlin when asked to assess Rodgers’ performance.
It wasn’t a direct shot at Rodgers by any means from Tomlin. Though clearly, he seems to feel exactly the same as most who watched the game.
Tomlin would also acknowledge that there were far more issues than just Rodgers for Pittsburgh in the game, bluntly declaring that his team “stunk it up” against the Chargers.
“You're not going to win football games not converting third downs and losing the turnover battle," Tomlin said. "We certainly were loose with the ball in several instances and didn't convert enough third downs, and so that's the end result. It's nothing mystical about it. We’ll be back, we’ll be better. But we certainly weren’t tonight. We stunk it up tonight.”
Rodgers likely won’t be taken aback by anything that his head coach has to say about him. This is because he was largely on the same page with Tomlin about how the game went.
Addressing the media in his own right after the game, Rodgers admitted that he was far from his best in the game and needs to “bounce back” in a big way moving forward.
"I expect to play great every single week, and this was not my best performance," Rodgers said. "I've got to play better than this for us to win. Whatever it takes. If it's better checks, if it's better throws, I've got to play better. I will, but we've got to bounce back.”
Unfortunately for the Steelers, their poor play against the Chargers was not the only bad news to emerge on Sunday. Notably, the Baltimore Ravens won their third straight game in Week 10 against the Minnesota Vikings. Now, they sit just one game behind the Steelers in the AFC North.
Pittsburgh will look to get back on track in Week 11 against the Cincinnati Bengals, whom they lost to in their prior Week 7 matchup. So it will certainly be crucial for Rodgers to figure out a way to provide a spark for a Steelers offense in desperate need of one moving forward.
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