Foster: Tomlin's Messages Are Still Resonating Well With Players
PITTSBURGH (93-7 The Fan)- After their fourth straight loss, this time to the Dallas Cowboys at home this past Sunday, many fans are left with questions about the Steelers and what may be contributing to their woes.
Steelers guard Ramon Foster joined "The Fan Morning Show" on Tuesday in his weekly spot to answer some of those questions. When asked about who the leader of the team was, his answer was simple.
"Its Ben. Definitely," said Foster. "When he calls out accountability, I look at it in a sense that he's talking man to man. Are you doing your job to the best of your ability? Are you a guy that's a 'team first' individual? Or, are you out here doing your own thing? That's one of the things that have been separating us from the wins and losses right now, is everybody just doing their jobs to the best of their ability."
Foster said that when your team loses, the negatives that players do get highlighted more than usual. But, it's nothing a little winning can't fix.
"When you're on like a losing streak, and you have those [small mistakes] up in the air against you, everything is highlighted," said Foster. "So, the thing that we have to do first and foremost is just get a win. Then, we can build from there. It's not one of those things where we just cram into a hole and just forget everything we've done. We know how to do everything that's gone wrong and/or correct it anyway and losing doesn't help, you know, the small things that are happening right now."
Foster believes that the preparation and practices throughout the week leading up to games is more than enough to win and isn't an issue.
"This past week I thought [practices went] really well," said Foster. "We did everything we needed to to prepare for the game. I won't get into this whole thing about the coaching staff needs to do this or do that, they're not the ones out there playing. We are the product out there, the coaches have gotten us ready. I know one thing, our meetings are long as ever, we definitely have a lot of detail on what we're doing so I can't point that back at the front office, guys just have to do their job we have to be pros about everything that we're doing."
A lot of the chatter in the aftermath of the loss to Dallas is whether or not head coach Mike Tomlin has lost control of the locker room and whether his message is still being received well to his players. Foster says that it is.
"It definitely resonates, man," said Foster. "You ask any guy in this locker room about how he speaks and what his words mean to them and I think they would say the same thing. It's easy to point to the guy at the top and that's why I said, when you're losing everything's magnified. We could probably have these same issues as a winning team, but it wouldn't be brought up that way. So, I hate the finger-pointing at this point in the season, there's so much season still left and let's just ride this thing out more than anything, I hate that kind of talk. This is people's livelihoods and you divide locker rooms and fan bases that way."
So, will the Steelers fix their road woes against losing teams starting at Cleveland next week?
"I won't even just give you anything philosophical, I'll just say we need to get a win. Period," Foster said. "Everything out the window, just get a win. That's simply how I feel about it, however way we get it."
Check out the entire interview with Ramon Foster on "The Fan Morning Show" below.