Wednesday Warning: It's time for the Steelers to get angry again
Welcome to the Wednesday Warning - each Wednesday, KDKA-TV Sports' Josh Taylor takes you through what you need to know for that upcoming Sunday's Steelers game.
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - It wasn't the worst way a season could start for the Pittsburgh Steelers, but it was pretty close.
Lose your best player for nearly half the season after an overtime win on the road in Week 1?
Lose three games in a row while simultaneously scrapping the plan for the free agent quarterback you signed during the offseason and giving your rookie quarterback his first opportunity to play and start in the NFL?
Win a game to break the losing streak, but then lose three out of the next four, including blowout losses to the best team in each conference - Philadelphia in the NFC and Buffalo in the AFC?
It was enough to make any team, or any fanbase for that matter, angry.
Then the bye week happened, and a few things changed for the Steelers afterward.
The run game started to work more efficiently.
The passing game, led by the same rookie quarterback, became more and more efficient each week.
The defense, by virtue of a more efficient ball-controlling offense, became a lot more consistent in keeping teams out of the end zone.
The Steelers, as a result, won two of their first three games following the bye week.
Then the Mike Tomlin incident happened in Atlanta: a Steelers fan who was in an area of the Mercedes-Benz Stadium where fans normally don't have access tried to get Tomlin's attention as he was headed to the tunnel before the second half of the game.
As the fan tried to encourage Tomlin to a victory, an irritated Tomlin snapped back, "Man, I'm [expletive] working!"
CONTENT WARNING: EXPLICIT LANGUAGE
The Steelers went on to beat the Falcons, 19-16, for their third win in four weeks and their second straight road win in a short week of preparation. They improved their season record to 5-7 after being 2-6 just five weeks before.
Running back Najee Harris, after having dealt with more than one injury over the course of the season (including a Lisfranc sprain that reportedly occurred early during training camp, an injury that has ended the seasons of other players), not only looked like the caliber of running back fans expected when he was drafted in the first round in 2021, he also had his best performance of the season in terms of yards per carry (5.06).
Harris ran with so much of an affinity toward contact, the video of his stiff arm of Falcons' defensive back Richie Grant has more than 111,000 likes on the Steelers' Instagram account... and counting.
To use one word to describe how Harris ran in Atlanta: angry.
So, what changed?
Maybe the Steelers as a team - like their head coach - just needed to get angry.
And if that were the case, what if I told you this wouldn't be the first time it happened under a Mike Tomlin-led Steelers team?
Former linebacker Arthur Moats shared a story with Chris Carter earlier this season on the LockedOn Steelers podcast about the 2016 Steelers team that lost four games in a row after starting the season winning four of their first five.
"First off, when you're talking about the in-house element of it, it sucked," said Moats. "Because Coach Tomlin did transition from being super understanding, wanting to communicate and hearing your side of your opinion, to being really rigid, really aggressive in his approach.
"It was more so if you didn't do it exactly the way he wanted to the letter of the land, then he was going to ultimately fine you. Even as mundane as it may be, if I say, 'Hey, at 3 p.m., I want your toes on the line, and it's 2:59 and your toe is in front of the line, and it's 3:01, and your toe is behind the line?' He was going to fine you.
"But for us, we understood where his stance was because we realized the privilege he had given us in the sense of, 'I'm going to be more understanding towards you. I'm going to allow you to be a little more loose in your preparation, a little more loose in terms of how we operate on the road, curfews, and stuff like that.' Well, we had showed him that we weren't mature enough for that at that time, so his response to that was, 'I'm going to be super disciplined. I'm going to make it as military style as possible because that's what you guys need right now."
Not only did the team need it, but they also responded to it with a seven-game winning streak that saved their season and continued into the playoffs.
"It eventually hit a point where we're looking up and we're like, 'Man, even though we're mad, we've knocked off six [wins] in a row," said Moats. "Even though we're mad, we just knocked off eight in a row. Even though we're mad, we just went on the road in the postseason and won two games back-to-back. This is just crazy.
"Afterwards, we looked back and we thought it was one of the best things that could've happened to us, Coach Tomlin being the way that he was."
The Steelers finished the 2016 season with a record of 11-5, winning the AFC North Division and eventually losing to the New England Patriots, the eventual Super Bowl champions, in the AFC Championship Game.
Right now, the Steelers' record sits at 5-7 with five remaining games that have suddenly become more winnable, beginning with one of two games against fierce division rival Baltimore this upcoming Sunday.
Quarterback Lamar Jackson is considered week-to-week with a reportedly sprained MCL in his knee, severely dampening the Ravens' chances Sunday at Acrisure Stadium, and potentially, at M&T Bank Stadium on January 1.
Could this Steelers team run the table and cap off seven wins in a row to close out what was once thought to be a lost season?
Maybe. But there's only one way to find out.
And maybe the best way to do such a thing again is to get angry.
Again.
