Dunlap: Mike Tomlin Needs To Start Acting, Quit Talking
No one likes fun more than me.
Well, maybe except Antonio Brown.
Dance, dance, dance. Have your fun, go crazy and go wild --- until it costs your team.
That's what happened, again, on Sunday with Antonio Brown as the Steelers frittered away a late lead and fell to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 27-24 at Heinz Field.
A touchdown for Brown.
An admitted comical and entertaining end zone celebration from Brown.
An unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for Brown and the Steelers.
We have seen this songless dance all before.
Do I like that the NFL has seemingly attempted to take a bigger stand on guys having fun in the end zone than guys slapping their woman in an Atlantic City elevator? No.
But is the reality – the known reality as you enter a game – that your team will be steeply penalized if you draw individual attention after a score? Yes.
We are past the point of Antonio Brown wising up on his own, realizing for himself that he needs to make a change. Well past it.
We are also past the point of Steelers coach Mike Tomlin getting a free pass in all of this. Well past it.
When it comes to discipline, when it comes to control, he has unilateral power --- and it is about time he quits talking and starts acting.
After Sunday's loss in which the Steelers were penalized an almost-unfathomable 13 times for 125 yards, Coach Pontification felt the need to pontificate.
Again.
"We need to fix it," Tomlin said. "And if we don't we will continue to lose close football games. It's just that simple. Some of the penalties are technical or orientation-like, facemask penalties and things of that nature. Our tackling technique needs to improve. But some of the pre-snap and post-snap and post-play penalties are just lacking discipline. We have to fix it. I have to fix it. And I will."
You will? Show me. Show us. Show Steeler Nation.
Quit talking about it and do it, Mike.
Brown's penalty was just one instance in a smaller problem for this team over the past few seasons --- a past few seasons that has yielded a combined 16-16 record.
The Steelers seem to be brash and arrogant for a bunch of guys playing a bunch of .500 football.
The Steelers seem to be guilty of an exorbitant amount --- as Tomlin pointed out --- of those deadball penalties that come back, invariably, to a lack of discipline.
All that also comes back, invariably, to the head coach.
So as the Steelers' loss to Tampa will now be picked apart and dissected from a gazillion different directions before they take the field again next week in Jacksonville, Tomlin should alter his plan.
Now, he can't cut off his nose to spite his face, but if there is another Fred Astaire performance from Antonio Brown, Tomlin should sit him a series.
If there is a player who can't seem to stay clear of pre or postsnap penalties, give him a series on the sideline to think about it.
If not, if Tomlin doesn't act, everything he said in the aftermath of the loss to Tampa will be just hollow words.
And, frankly, that's all it has been from Coach Pontification up until this point.
How about this one, Mike --- start following those words with some action.
Then maybe your players will listen.
Colin Dunlap is a featured columnist at CBSPittsburgh.com. He can also be heard weeknights from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Sports Radio 93-7 "The Fan." You can e-mail him at colin.dunlap@cbsradio.com. Check out his bio here.
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