Steelers head coach Mike McCarthy was notably deflated on the podium in his postgame press conference following a 20-3 loss to the New England Patriots on Sunday afternoon.
“Offensively, clearly not good enough, And that starts with me,” he told the media. “Felt it in practice, frankly, coming off of (offensive struggles) last week. As I stated, felt we were real herky jerky in the run and pass. … We didn’t answer the bell. Our protections were not clean.”
McCarthy noted several aspects of the game
where the Steelers needed to improve. “The reality of it is the detail is not there,” he said. “And that’s on coaching. Starts with me; I’m calling the offense. I have to get the detail better. If you need someone, fire away, because I felt it on Wednesday and Thursday. I’m a veteran coach and I know better. And I didn’t do a good job.”
Still, McCarthy made it clear he didn’t want to overreact when asked about potential personnel changes.
“Well, I mean, it’s two weeks,” he said. But if you’re making the same mistakes, whether you’re young or a veteran, that’s what we have to address. We have to look at the volume, too. … If it’s not clean, you have to cut the volume down. And we’re not clean on offense, so the volume is getting cut down. So that’s the first starting point and that’s my fault because I felt it early in the week.”
McCarthy, in his first year as the Steelers’ head coach, clarified what he meant about “volume” during practice — emphasizing the team needs to work on the fundamentals before expanding further.
“You know when the volume is up, and you know when you’re pushing the envelope, too,” he said. “But it’s also the first year of the staff and players working together, and you want to push your players — but at the end of the day, you have to do it to win the game. … The basics weren’t there.”
McCarthy shifted the blame from players such as quarterback Aaron Rodgers to himself. He also noted that the team needs more explosives on offense.
“We got a quarterback who can play at any volume of game plan, but at the end of the day it’s a team game, and we have to give Aaron Rodgers better platforms to throw off of,” he said. “I don’t want to dink and dunk … there’s a place for that maybe situationally, but that’s not the philosophy — we have to attempt to get the ball thrown downfield.”
One of the brighter spots from the Steelers’ loss was a defensive performance that kept the game in reach for a while. However, Pittsburgh wasn’t able to hang on through the fourth quarter.
“Defense played well enough to win the game – you hold them to 13 points (on offense), I expect us to win every game we line up in,” McCarthy said. “Offense needs to be better. Mike McCarthy needs to be better.”
