Dec 18, 2016 5 min read

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The Twitter GMs and know-it-alls were out in full force for about an hour, hour and a half on Sunday.

“See, this is Tomlin not having his team prepared,” they all but screamed.

“Tell me again what a good coach Tomlin is,” another opined.

OK.

The easy thing for the Steelers to do in this game after falling behind by two touchdowns in the first half would have been to completely tear up the game plan and try something else. But Tomlin was in tune with what was happening enough to see that the Steelers had given the Bengals pretty much everything they had gotten in the first half of Pittsburgh’s 24-20 win.

Outside of one touchdown drive, the Bengals didn’t do a lot offensively in this game.

So Tomlin knew that if he stayed the course, his team would turn things around.

Perhaps he couldn’t have fortold a defensive effort that would allow just 38 yards in the second half, but that’s what he got. And he did it by changing nothing.

The game plan was solid on both sides of the ball. So why change it?

After all, despite everything that occurred in the first half, the Steelers were down 20-9, not 20-0.

• Here’s one for the old guys.

James Harrison led the Steelers with nine tackles, including one for a loss.

Lawrence Timmons had eight tackles and an interception.

“Legends. All-Madden,” said defensive end Ricardo Mathews. “You turn on Playstation 4 and look at legendary mode, I don’t even know if that’s a real mode, but if it was, Harrison and Law Dog would be on there.”

• It was a big blow to the Steelers to lose Stephon Tuitt to a knee injury on the third defensive snap of this game – on a play in which he got a facemask penalty, as well.

And it took them some time to adjust to Cincinnati’s running game after that.

Luckily for the Steelers, the Bengals were intent on continuing to run Jeremy Hill (20 carries for 43 yards) into the line of scrimmage, instead of Rex Burkhead, who had seven carries for 32 yards.

Burkhead had six of those carries for 23 yards in the first half and got just one more rushing attempt after that.

As my good friend Bob Labriola likes to say, “the other team has coaches, too.”

• The concussion suffered by Ladarius Green in this game has to be a concern, as well.

Green had two concussions last September. I wouldn’t count on him clearing concussion protocol before Sunday’s game. But you never know with head injuries.

• No matter how much the Bengals claim Vontaze Burfict has turned a new leaf, you still see him at the center of all things bad when it comes to a game agaisnt the Steelers.

“You guys know how he is,” said Steelers guard David DeCastro. “I’m not going to add any bulletin board material.”

• Chris Boswell had six field goals in this game, but his biggest play might have been a shoestring tackle on a 72-yard kick return by Alex Erickson in the second quarter.

“He needs no endorsement from me,” said Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin. “Shoot, I just gave him a game ball.”

That’s two game balls to kickers in the past three weeks for those counting at home.

• As I wrote last week, everything for the Steelers winning the division comes down to beating Baltimore this week.

And that’s the way it should be.

If you’re going to play a game on Christmas day, it might as well be meaningful.

• Ben Roethlisberger didn’t have his best game – he missed some guys high, especially early – but he played a solid game.

Le’Veon Bell was solid, again, as well.

But you have to like the emergence of Eli Rogers again as a threat as well as Sammie Coates catching his first pass from Roethlisberger since the win over the Jets all the way back in October.

The Steelers again tried to get Coates more involved on some deep passes and it appeared he might have had some borderline pass interference penalties – especially one a pass down the sideline in the first half – but they weren’t called.

• Somebody needs to tell Fitzgerald Toussaint to stop returning kicks out of the end zone. Better yet, get him out of back there.

I know the Steelers like to have a running back serve as the other deep guy, but we’ve watched opposing teams continue to kick the ball to his side and he continues to try to run them out of the end zone to poor results.

• The Steelers don’t have to beat the Ravens to still make the playoffs. They can get in if they go 10-6, so long as they don’t finish in a two-way tie with Miami. They win three-way tiebreakers, even if Miami is involved.

But they do need to beat the Ravens to get past that psychological barrier.

• Of course, much of the Twitter complaining about Tomlin now revolves around his two-point conversion tries.

Somebody heard the term chasing points when it comes to two-point conversions and thinks that applies to every two-point try.

You’re not “chasing” points when you go for two when you’re ahead. You’re trying to acquire more points. And isn’t that the idea of the game, to score as much as possible?

There wasn’t much difference between being up four or five for the Steelers. But there is a difference being up six. That, then requires both a touchdown and a PAT – no given in today’s NFL – to go ahead.

And no, Tomlin isn’t thinking about what might happen if the Steelers miss on those. He’s thinking about the positives of it.

But, hey, Twitter GMs and coaches know all.