With the Pittsburgh Steelers making the official announcement of the hiring of Grady Brown as their secondary coach, all their vacant positions following the 2020 season has been filled. Although Steelers could add more coaching positions at any time, there is a good chance their coaching staff is set ahead of their offseason preparation for the upconing NFL draft and free agency period..
The following is a list of the Steelers coaching staff for the upcoming season along with their years in Pittsburgh, their years coaching in the NFL, and any NFL playing experience.
“They made more splash plays in circumstance than we did,” said Tomlin. “I thought they won the field position game on special teams. They got a couple of kick returns from a field position standpoint.
“When we didn’t handle the punt, that was a significant play. The two-minute go ball was a significant play. Sometimes when you are in games like this, that’s the difference. It felt like it was today.
“I thought those were the critical weighty things where they were able to control the game, particularly in the fourth quarter as we were trying to regain control of it. They got propped up by those plays and we didn’t do what was required. We didn’t make the significant chunks or move the ball enough on offense. At the end we didn’t get the necessary stop on defense.”
The mishandled punt Tomlin was referring to was a muff by Gunner Olszewski in the third quarter. The Patriots recovered, and with an unnecessary roughness penalty on Connor Heyward tacked on, they took over at the Steelers 10-yard line. The offense made them pay when Damien Harris scored on a two-yard run to extend the lead to 17-6.
While Tomlin said it was ‘painful’ now, he stressed the importance of moving forward as the Steelers don’t have much time to think about it with a Thursday night game in Cleveland this week.
“It’s important we zero our focus in on this short week,” said Tomlin. “There’s some things to learn from this performance, but we better learn quickly and shift our focus because we have a road division game here in a short period of time.”