PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Steelers continued their disappointing trend to begin the 2026 season, dropping their third straight on the road to start their first campaign under a new head coach.
The Steelers’ 0-3 record away from Acrisure Stadium can be dealt with. Lots of teams deal with this type of situation year in and year out.
But one piece of this remains unaddressed and unresolved, like a ghost in the attic that refuses to depart. Once again, a coaching blunder cost the Steelers a victory in regulation. Through the first six weeks of the season, Mike McCarthy is guiding this team to wins, but he's failing to live up to many of his training camp words.
Franco Moments Fail to Translate
A huge component of training camp were these supposed high-intensity moments during practice sessions. Wherever players were, when a certain signal occurred, everyone went to the main field for some type of truncated high-stress situation. Most of the focus was on two-minute drills and red zone opportunities.
The goal was to get this team ready for the adversity and tough moments an NFL game brings. McCarthy dubbed them “Franco Moments” at camp.
The Steelers had a golden opportunity to take what they focused on at camp and put it into action. With less than two minutes left in their Week 6 contest, the Steelers’ defense forced a turnover and gave the offense the ball inside the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ 5-yard line.
The strategy is rather simple in this scenario. The goal is to run out the clock while putting up points. That usually translates into a couple of handoffs with plenty of time in between snaps.
So, what did the Steelers do? They ran a play-action pass on first down, followed that up with a handoff to Jaylen Warren for a yard, and then went back to the pass on third down. Both passing attempts were incomplete, stopping the clock each time. The Steelers ended the drive with a field goal and the lead, but it left ample time for the Bucs to get into field goal range.
Asked after the game about what his considerations were when the offense took the field for that drive, McCarthy's answer was less than illuminating.
"Absolutely. You're talking clock. The first down, it was a boot," he said. "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."
Clock Mismanagement
Okay, so you don't take as much time off the clock as you wanted to. That's not the end of the world. The Steelers had the chance to stonewall the Bucs before they tied the game up.
The defense failed. They gave up a big play immediately that brought the Bucs into field goal range.
But McCarthy's blunder came with how he managed the clock. With roughly 30 seconds left on the clock, the Bucs trotted their field goal unit onto the field. Instead of immediately calling timeout and stopping the clock, he allowed it to run down to 13 seconds before the officials stopped the game clock.
After the game, he chalked it up to a miscommunication between himself and the officials.
"Yeah, there was some miscommunication there," he admitted. "We were thinking right away (of calling timeout) there at 34, 35 (seconds). Then there was just some miscommunication between the referee and I. So, that's why it went down as low as it did. But, ultimately, it worked out."
Yes, it did work out for the Steelers. But only in spite of the decisions their head coach made.
The team did what McCarthy asked coming out of Week 5. The team stacked victories and improved to 4-2. They also stacked coaching blunders, which should be as concerning as the back-to-back wins.
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