Saunders’ Steelers Takeaways: Mike McCarthy Was Supposed to be Better Than This, But Give Credit Where It’s Due

TAMPA, Fla. — Mike McCarthy was hired to be better than this.

When the Pittsburgh Steelers dealt with the sudden resignation of longtime head coach Mike Tomlin in January, the candidate pool was largely made up of young and inexperienced head coaching candidates.

That had been the Steelers way for most of the last 50 years, with first-time head coaches Chuck Noll, Bill Cowher and Mike Tomlin all leading the team to Super Bowls, and themselves into the Hall of Fame.

When the Steelers went through the hiring process this time around, those types of younger minds were once again considered. But ultimately, they were rejected in favor of the experience of McCarthy.

There were many reasons the Steelers chose McCarthy, but that experience was a big one of them. The Steelers didn’t want to saddle a veteran team with not many shots left at contending with a Can Heyward or a T.J. Watt with the coaching mistakes that would inevitably come with a new hire. McCarthy was safe, and while his hire could be criticized for that very point, it was also supposed to prevent things like what happened on Sunday in Tampa from happening.

That’s where the coach was nearly the single biggest reason for a Steelers loss.

He wouldn’t have been the only reason. There was plenty of poor play going around from those wearing black and gold in the first three quarters of Sunday’s game to make the team’s eventual win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers unlikely.

But one by one, the players that were responsible for the team starting in a big hole redeemed themselves.

After having a dreadful series of plays that directly lead to Tampa’s only touchdown in the first quarter, rookie cornerback Daylen Everette sparked the comeback with a late interception.

Germie Bernard made amends for his botched fourth down early in the game by continuing to be a spark for the passing game throughout the contest, setting career highs in yards and receptions.

Aaron Rodgers threw an interception early but led the offense to two late touchdown drives. Kicker Chris Boswell more than made up for his early miss by sinking a 58-yarder with under 2 minutes left.

Coaching adjustments were part of the turnaround, to be sure. But a big part of it was the players who had let the team down, raising it back up.

When Jamel Dean, one of the few Pittsburgh players who was good to great throughout Sunday’s game, picked off Tampa rookie Jalon Daniels and returned the ball to the 2-yard line wide the game tied and with 1:36 to play, that should have largely sealed things.

If the Steelers called three running plays, even if they didn’t score from the 2, Tampa would have been forced to call both of their remaining time outs. If all three plays took a brisk five seconds, the clock would have run down to 1:21 at the end of the third down play. Another 45 seconds after that would have left the Bucs only 36 seconds to drive into field goal range, without a timeout to use. And that’s if the Steelers, who averaged four yards per carry in the game, were unable to punch it in.

It’s certainly possible to lose the game from there. As we’ve seen around the NFL this season, even a handful of seconds is enough time to lose a game.

But opposing a rookie quarterback who had at that point thrown eight straight incomplete or intercepted passes, it would have been extremely unlikely.

Instead, two of the three plays the Steelers ran from the goal line were passes, and when Rodgers’ third-down toss to DK Metcalf fell incomplete, the Buccaneers had a timeout remaining and 1:21 to play — just enough time for Daniels to lead the Bucs into field goal range, which he did.

There, McCarthy got it wrong again, letting precious seconds tick away before calling a timeout after Tampa’s last third-down pass. That was more forgivable — the Steelers would have had just 25 seconds or so to work with in a best-case scenario after Tampa tied the game. There is also a good argument to be made that McCarthy shouldn’t have called timeout at all, letting Tampa kick with a running clock and without being able to bring a previously prepared kicking ball onto the field.

McCarthy blamed seconds ticking away in that instance on a miscommunication between himself and an official.

That seems unlikely, but is at least plausible. On the other hand, McCarthy’s explanation for not running the ball at the goal line is nearly incomprehensible.

“Absolutely,” McCarthy said when asked about if he was considering forcing Tampa to take its timeouts. “You’re talking clock. The first down, it was a boot. Then the second down, the run, we caught them with 10 on the field, so you know, it was a substitution and all of those things, but definitely was aware of the clock there.”

That’s, uh, something, I guess.

Look, if the Steelers would have fooled the Bucs with the play-action bootleg on first down, as they had earlier in the game, all would have been forgiven. And that risk could have made some sense if the Steelers had ran it twice after and at least forced Tampa to operate without timeouts.

But throwing the ball once again on third down feels like an unforced error that a coach of McCarthy’s stature shouldn’t make — and was in large part hired because he wouldn’t make those kinds of mistakes. Rodgers admitted that the play was a run-pass option, and that the final decision on whether to run or pass was in the hands of Pittsburgh’s 42-year-old quarterback. But why even give him the choice?

In recent weeks, Brian Schottenheimer of the Dallas Cowboys, Nick Sirianni of the Philadelphia Eagles and Dan Quinn of the Washington Commanders have had to stand at the podium after a game and explain how they helped cost their team a victory with poor late-game strategy.

McCarthy nearly put himself in that group, and he ought to be better than that. Of course, the fact that Quinn and Schottenheimer are two of McCarthy’s most-successful protégés may say something, as well. Schottenheimer fell into the same trap of letting Dak Prescott throw a deep red zone pass in the waning moments of his team’s loss to the Baltimore Ravens.

McCarthy approaches the game from a much more analytical mindset than his predecessors in Pittsburgh, which also makes Sunday’s mistake so strange. His inability to articulate any sensible reason for his decision-making is equally head-scratching.

At the end of the day, the Steelers players helped pick up McCarthy and they escaped Tampa with a win. But it’s definitely not a strong start in establishing his coaching-decision bona fides to a largely unfamiliar Pittsburgh fanbase.

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE

Things like late game clock management a part of coaching that gets a lot of attention from the fanbase, but it such a small part of what makes a coach good or great.

Tomlin could be considered average at best when it came to his game management, and he needed to improve over the course of his tenure to even be considered that.

On the other hand, things like game planning and making significant in-game adjustments are probably far more impactful on wins and losses and are frequently overlooked.

The Steelers did not game plan well against Tampa, but they had a significant disadvantage. The Buccaneers played on Thursday Night Football in Week 5, meaning their coaching staff had three extra days to prepare for his game.

Rest advantages are significant in the NFL, not just because team’s players are fresher, but because the extra time lets coaches do a much more thorough job of preparing for a game, particularly when it comes to self-scouting.

Before the Steelers had even kicked off against the Indianapolis Colts last Sunday, the Tampa coaching staff had already had time took look at everything they’d put on tape, think about how the Steelers were going to interpret that, and come up with a game plan to beat the most obvious avenues of attack.

The Steelers expected Tampa to come out heavily pressuring Rodgers. They did not. They also expected the Buccaneers offense to heavily lean on star running back Bucky Irving. They did not. On Tampa’s lone touchdown drive, it was all Daniels, all the way down the field.

And so the game plan installed by the Steelers coaches did not work in the early going. But they did make significant adjustments in game. That drive was the only time Patrick Graham’s unit even let the Tampa Bay offense sniff the end zone.

“He’s a good player,” linebacker Nick Herbig said on Daniels’ unexpected role. “To be a rookie like that, a quarterback, and come in and be able to dish the ball out like he did, that’s respect. We know who we are as a team, and who we want to be as a defense, so we had to settle down. I think we did that. I think we settled down.”

Once McCarthy and the Steelers offense staff realized that Rodgers wasn’t going to be blitzed into oblivion, they got to some deeper passing concepts that opened up the whole offense.

“Once we got DK involved, the offense just shifted, so maybe we can get that going a little earlier next time,” Rodgers said.

That’s a bit of a rib at the Bucs being able to anticipate McCarthy’s game plan, but again, they had the upper hand in that matchup.

Once the Steelers made their adjustments, they found things much, much easier. The offense finished with two touchdowns and three fields on its final five possessions. The defense held Tampa to one field goal and had two takeaways in its final five possessions.

The in-game adjustments made by the Steelers coaching staff were a big part of why they were even in a position to win the game late.

EXCEEDING BIG EXPECTATIONS

Earlier this season, Rodgers was asked about playing with some younger receivers, like Bernard, the team’s rookie third-round draft pick, and Rodgers gave a pretty blunt assessment of what he was expecting from Bernard this season.

“Well, I think anytime you bring in a young player, unless they’re Calvin Johnson, you have to temper your expectations,” Rodgers said on Cam Heyward’s Not Just Football podcast. “Justin Jefferson as well, Randy Moss, there’s like a handful of guys who’ve been like dominant receivers. It’s one of the most difficult positions I think to transfer from college to the NFL. It usually takes guys a year or two. The best guys I had in Green Bay, if you think about all of them, from Greg Jennings to James Jones, Jordy Nelson, Davante Adams, Randall Cobb, their rookie years were not explosive years.”

The Steelers didn’t have a lot of choice on Sunday but to lean on Bernard. With Michael Pittman Jr., Roman Wilson and Ben Skowronek all out with injures, Bernard was the clear No. 2 receiver on the team, and even after his early error, he stepped up in a big way.

“You need to ease expectations, but there comes a time when the confidence starts to match the potential, and I think we’re reaching that time with Germie,” Rodgers said on Sunday. “Very proud of him. Obviously, the fourth down, probably should just catch it and back up. But he made a lot of nice plays today, a lot of smart plays, a lot of good catches. Obviously, super smart there [in overtime]. Catch, kind of broke a tackle, reach out for the game-winning touchdown. We had to have it. We had a ton of targets for DK, a ton of targets for Germie, and we needed it to win today.”

Rodgers is not an easy quarterback for rookie receiver to impress, which should make Bernard’s progress in his rookie season evident.

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