Post-Tennessee thoughts

Mike Tomlin said following this latest road loss that you could blame him for the missed field goal attempt from 54 yards by Shaun Suisham.

No kidding.

You certainly can't blame Suisham there. Even with his make from 52 yards moments before Tomlin sent him on the field with the game on the line, Suisham is just 5 of 12 from 50-plus yards in his career.

And yet Tomlin sent him onto the field to attempt what would have been a career long kick.

Seriously.

I thought when Tomlin called timeout after initially sending Suisham onto the field, it was because he had second thoughts - rightfully - about what he was about to do.

Trying to convert the fourth-and-7 or punting in that situation would have made more sense. Tomlin elected to kick.

That gave the Titans the ball back at their own 45, pretty much needing one play to win it. They got that on third down when a Steelers blitz failed to get to Matt Hasselbeck and he found tight end Jared Cook on a crossing pattern with James Harrison - Pittsburgh's best pass rusher - trailing.

Seriously.

You can't make this stuff up.

I'm sorry, but if it's me and I'm facing a situation where I really, really need to get to the quarterback, I'm having James Harrison try to get there rather than dropping him into coverage.

I know that it's easy to second-guess decisions after the fact, but really, these are such no-brainers, you have to scratch your head and wonder.

@ Ike Taylor is playing with zero confidence right now, which is leading to all of the clutching and grabbing.

Grab, grab, grab. That's all he's doing out there.

Taylor's stat line of six tackles and two pass defenses really doesn't tell the story. Three defensive penalties - one of which was declined because the receiver made the catch anyway - there's your true stat line.

Taylor is better than that.

@ The Steelers actually found a way to make Chris Johnson look like something other than a Milli Vanilli castoff.

Johnson averaged 4.8 yards per carry against this once-vaunted defense, with a long run of 13 yards. That tells you exactly how effective Johnson was. He was consistently banging out five or so yards every carry.

@ I'm going to the stats again on this one. The stat sheet says Ben Roethlisberger threw for 363 yards, which would presumably mean he had a good game.

But a closer look shows that he completed just 10 of 20 passes to his wide receivers, with 14 receptions on 19 attempts to his backs and tight ends. That's Flacco-like.

Isaac Redman made some things happen after the catch, but realistically, who would you rather have with the ball in his hands in the open field, Redman or Antonio Brown.

Brown, by the way, had his worst game in a long, long time, finishing with four receptions for 20 yards despite being targeted 10 times.

The bottom line? Roethlisberger wasn't very sharp in this one.

@ Realistically, I blame this one on the special teams as much as anything.

Not only did the Steelers get a punt blocked to set up a 1-yard touchdown, but DeMarcus Van Dyke had a huge holding penalty on Tennessee's final kickoff to put the ball at the Pittsburgh 11 rather than the 22.

Think those extra 11 yards would have helped Suisham?