Madden Monday: Mike Tomlin and the Steelers' defense are the 'biggest reasons the team lost' in Indianapolis

The Pittsburgh Steelers lost 27-24 as road favorites in Indianapolis on Sunday to fall to 3-1. In this week’s “Madden Monday” podcast, Mark Madden of TribLive and 105.9 The X said the reasons why the upset happened are quite simple.

He begins with the head coach.

“(Mike) Tomlin today and the defense, the two things that everybody talks about — the elite defense and great ‘Coach T’ — they were the two biggest reasons the team lost,” Madden said.

From a defensive standpoint, Madden got on Tomlin and coordinator Teryl Austin for being vanilla in their pass rush schemes, particularly once Joe Flacco took over at quarterback for an injured Anthony Richardson.

“I thought the defense was awful passive,” Madden said. “I don’t think they were aggressive at all. They kind of laid back. And I thought it’d be all over Flacco. I saw nothing exotic on defense.

“You know what they need to do? They need to move (T.J.) Watt around. They need to have Watt, line up in different places. That’s how other premier pass rushers find openings when they’re getting chipped and double-teamed all the time. Why doesn’t Teryl Austin do that?”

More sports

• Airing of Grievances: Self-inflicted wounds, shaky coaching decisions allow Steelers to get trapped vs. Colts
• Old nemesis Joe Flacco comes off bench for Colts, beats Steelers 1 more time
• ‘I thought we were playing football’ – Steelers’ Minkah Fitzpatrick livid about personal foul flag

In terms of Tomlin, Madden disliked a number of his coaching decisions, including his failure to use his third timeout late in the contest as the team snapped the ball with a rolling clock on what turned out to be a game-ending fourth down.

Tomlin argued that he wanted to save the timeout until later and wanted to keep the defense off balance without a chance to substitute after Najee Harris was tackled in bounds on third down.

“Yes,” Madden said when I asked him if he would’ve used a timeout before the fourth-down snap. “I’m not sure what else to add. I would think that’s so obvious that there’s no debate. That ‘defense has a chance to substitute’ stuff? That’s him inventing an excuse for screwing up.”

Madden says we shouldn’t let the offense off the hook either. It got off to a dreadful start, posting just one field goal before halftime. It was the fourth straight week Arthur Smith’s unit was unable to score more than 10 points in the first half.

“I don’t see the offense looking any better or different under (Smith). I don’t see the tight ends emerging. I don’t see the running game being powerful or dynamic. The only saving grace was (Justin) Fields,” Madden said. “Justin Fields shouldn’t be the saving grace of the offense. It should look different than last year’s offense. I don’t see much different than I saw with the (Matt) Canada offense, except for the formation — more tight ends.”

Also in the podcast, Madden and I get more into Fields’ day, we preview next week’s game against the Dallas Cowboys, we look at the Pirates’ embarrassing week to end their 2024 regular season, and we review Paul Skenes’ all too brief outing at Yankee Stadium.