Steelers' Mike Tomlin Is Angry At His Team For 1 Critical Issue In Week 6 Win Against Browns

When the Pittsburgh Steelers host the Cleveland Browns, it becomes as close to a free win as it can get. Cleveland has not won a regular-season game in the Steel City since before Ben Roethlisberger was drafted, and that streak continued in Week 6. Pittsburgh did what it had to do to get a somewhat comfortable 23-9 win, as almost everything went the franchise's way all game long. Now, the team has to immediately change its mindset and prepare for a road divisional game for Thursday Night Football in Week 6. 

However, that does not mean that the Steelers can't go out there and fix up certain issues after a relatively easy win. During his postgame press conference, Head Coach Mike Tomlin opened it up by talking about one area where his team was really struggling in. 

"One area where we fell short is the penalty component," Tomlin explained. "We scout [officiating] crews just like we scout teams. We know this crew throws a lot of penalties, and we dropped the ball in terms of our preparedness there. I will accept responsibility for that; we got to be better. You can't beat anybody when you're beating yourself, and it just felt like at teams, we did that today, and so we got to own that."

Tomlin, who rarely lets his emotions show publicly whether his team wins or loses, was definitely angry at all the flags being thrown on his squad. With a short week coming up, it will be hard to practice cleaning up all of those issues, but the team still needs to make sure it doesn't have that kind of game again. Luckily, it dominated in every other component to keep the penalties from mattering too much this time around. 

In the contest against the Browns, the Steelers had 10 accepted penalties against them for 59 yards. Some of them were very basic penalties, some were very ticky-tacky, and others were just blatantly obvious. Meanwhile, the Browns had six accepted penalties for 44 yards. They got dinged fewer times, but there were some impactful calls going against them as well. 

Coming into the matchup, the Steelers had the fewest penalties called against them, with just five flags being accepted per game. That stat is long gone now. They have averaged about one full penalty against more than they did after their game in Ireland because of what happened on Sunday. Hopefully, it's just a fluke day with a strict crew, and they can get back on track quickly.

Steelers' Breakdown Of Flags Being Thrown

Two of the penalties accepted against the Steelers were offsides calls on TJ Watt. The announcers noted that both he and Tomlin had a long conversation with the official on the sideline, as that is something that rarely ever happens. There was also a very questionable blindside block penalty early on in the game that wiped out a great punt return from undrafted rookie Ke'Shawn Williams. 

That penalty was a big one, but there was also an unnecessary roughness penalty on safety DeShon Elliott that was pretty hard to dispute. That one helped get the Browns down into field goal range. There were also a pair of hands-to-the-face calls that helped Cleveland extend its drives. Those are things that just can't happen if your Pittsburgh.

Overall, there are still so many positives to take away from this game. The defense did its job, and the offense showed some ability to move the ball downfield consistently. It was still a great game overall, and there should be no shame in how everyone performed. It's still good to acknowledge what went wrong to help make sure it does not happen again in the future.

What do you think about Tomlin being upset at his team for the penalties they committed? Let us know in the comments or on X at @Steelers_ChrisB.

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