U mad, bro?: Steelers fans are fixating on Mike Tomlin, frothing over NFL officiating and frustrated with Pirates ... uniforms?

The Steelers may have a bye week. But “U mad, bro?” does not.

This one has a lot of salty Steelers fans who are mad at coach Mike Tomlin, the officiating at the end of Sunday’s win over the Seattle Seahawks and media members for being too critical.

I guess I fall into that category.

Oh. We also have a creative solution for all of the Pirates’ problems.

We’ll start with Henry who is mad at NFL officials for how they handled the replay debate during the last few seconds of regulation in what became an overtime win for the Steelers over the Seahawks Sunday.

The problem is that the NFL acted in a way to ensure that Seattle could clock the ball. They called for the replay to stop the clock. You’re right, they didn’t need to, but they did! The NFL tried to alter the outcome of the game.

— Henry W Schaadt (@MLCHank44) October 18, 2021

Whenever it comes to a choice between blaming the officiating for incompetence or alleging a vast conspiracy theory, I’m always going to choose the first thing.

Because I always assume that if the officials can’t successfully call a simple block in the back on a kickoff without a five-minute discussion to figure out where to spot the ball, odds are they aren’t slick enough to pull off a surreptitious plan to fix a nationally televised game.

There was zero reason to stop that play to see if Seattle receiver DK Metcalf made a legal catch. None.

In fact, it was such an obvious catch that if the league was trying to subtly help the Seahawks win — for whatever reason you may be assuming — all they did was expose themselves to that accusation by performing such a silly replay review.

That’s not what happened. It was just a stupid decision to buzz for a replay, and they had no better explanation than that to blurt out in the stadium for why the game was stopped. It wasn’t a conspiracy. It was incompetence.

By the way, if you think this was a gambling-related thing, the Seahawks were already going to cover, even without that field goal. So unless the replay judge had the Hawks on the money line with Geno Smith quarterbacking, I think your hunch is unlikely to be true.

Kevin says we should stop complaining about the replay debate before the spike.

“Even if there had been no whistles, Geno Smith clocked it with 1 second left … (What) is everyone crying about?”

Simple, Kevin. Procedure.

The officiating procedure was horrible. As I just said, there was no need for replay in the first place. If they did feel the need to review the play, look to see if Metcalf’s foot was out of bounds, not whether the catch itself was made.

Don’t let players out of uniform — like Russell Wilson — on the field while the clock is running. The umpire should’ve gotten the ball back quicker from Seattle receiver Freddie Swain to spot it himself instead of just touching it up.

And this play shows there is a flaw in the rules that needs to be tweaked moving forward for how replay can be administered in such situations. There should be a rule on the books that replay can’t stop a running clock with under 10 seconds left. Or, an exception should be made that, under such circumstances, previous plays can be reviewed even if a snap and a spike occurs.

Nicholas has a better solution. He just wants me to blame Mike Tomlin for the Steelers’ struggles against the Seahawks Sunday night. Not the officials.

We’re still on this moot point?

— Wilson802 (@VT802_Nicholas) October 19, 2021

Tomlin has enough issues with his own clock management to worry about the refs. He might be the worst in the nfl in terms of clock management and timeout usage.

— Wilson802 (@VT802_Nicholas) October 19, 2021

It’s a league-wide rules debate that happened in a Steelers game Sunday night. Why isn’t that still worthy of discussion on Tuesday morning when I posted the story you are mad about?

Yet, you think the fresh, hot take of “just blame Tomlin”— even after a win — is a better way to go for any and all analysis seven days a week?

That’s ironic.

David emailed me about the Steelers. He’s not a big Tomlin “the standard is the standard” fan.

“Let’s be honest, the standard we have with Tomlin is shooting for. 500. It’s embarrassing, Tomlin, little boy Rooney, the team, and the media need (to be) called out. (The idea) that not having a losing season is something to be proud of … at least for a team that used to be respected and feared among the rest of the league?

Bragging about not having a losing season while ignoring no playoff wins means bragging about being average. Seven years of average or a little better (stinks).”

That’s true, David. The standard has slipped.

Even worse, in many of the years they have been above average since the Super Bowl loss to Green Bay, their postseasons have ended in losses to teams with lesser records (2011, ‘14, ‘17, ‘20).

But, with 17 games on the schedule now, that whole “avoiding sub-.500 thing” may be getting a little bit harder to achieve.

Unless they tie. Which they almost just did.

Against a backup quarterback and one of the worst defenses in football.

So, yeah, about those slipping “standards”….

Laz says Mark Madden and I were guilty of click-baiting by being critical of the Steelers defense in the wake of the their win against the Seahawks Sunday.

Big man Thirsty for clicks. Don’t click ya’ll.

— Lazz Tantalo (@LazTantaloAtLaw) October 18, 2021

What that defense should be thirsty for is a clean tackle from someone who doesn’t have the last name of Watt or Heyward.

A little parched in that regard after Sunday night, no?

A good defense doesn’t turn Alex Collins into Jim Brown, nor does it allow a 14-point second-half comeback to a backup such as Smith.

Finally, David has a suggestion on how to fix the Pirates.

“To honor Roberto Clemente AND symbolize a revitalized, competitive team (I hope), wouldn’t it be great for a uniform jersey change back to the vest-type in which Roberto looked so great??

When I asked Al Oliver about the change several years ago, he complained those jerseys were hot due to the extra undershirt. I suggest the current uniforms could be modified by simply having the sleeves changed to black cloth.”

David, the issue with the Pirates isn’t the style of uniforms the players are wearing.

It’s the names on the backs of those uniforms. Almost all of those names should be in Indianapolis.

Wearing Triple-A uniforms. Of whatever style you prefer.