Mike Tomlin showed satisfaction after the Pittsburgh Steelers secured an important 23-9 victory against the Cleveland Browns. Despite this, the head coach also wanted to temper the excitement over the 4-1 start, warning that they have a dangerous visit to Cincinnati coming up very soon.
“Man, it’s great to win in the North. Good start for us in divisional play. I appreciate the way guys came off from the bye week. We didn’t warm up to it. We got a short week. We’re chasing another AFC North rival in a short number of days. So, we respect the process. We got to work fast here in preparation for Thursday Night.”
Additionally, Tomlin acknowledged that Aaron Rodgers has met expectations and that, with more repetitions and games, his quarterback and the entire team should improve due to the cohesion that is developing. “I certainly think that’s a reasonable expectation with more exposure whether you’re young, old, experienced or inexperienced. Particularly, this collective journey that we’re on. The more that you get an opportunity to play, certainly there’s more comfort there.”
Did Steelers win against Browns?
Yes. The Steelers won 23-9 over the Cleveland Browns in their first divisional game of the season. However, Mike Tomlin expressed concern about the number of penalties, since, up until Week 6, they had been one of the best teams in the NFL in that regard.
“One area where we certainly fell short is the penalty component. We scout crews just like we scout teams. We know this crew throws a lot of penalties and we dropped the ball in terms of our preparedness there. I’ll accept responsibility for that. We got to be better. You can’t beat anybody when you’re beating yourself. It just felt like at times, we did that today. So, we got to own that.”