After the Steelers lost their preseason opener to the Redskins, Pittsburgh coach Mike Tomlin offered a simple assessment of what went wrong: His team wasn’t as well prepared as Mike Shanahan’s team.
“That was not the kind of performance we were looking for or hoping for,” Tomlin said. “Quite frankly, we got outplayed in just about all areas – blocking, tackling, running, throwing, kicking. That team was better prepared tonight than us, and they showed it.”
Tomlin said he gave the starters the usual amount of playing time for the first preseason game but thought they came out looking ill-prepared.
“It just wasn’t very pretty, and we all bear responsibility for that, starting with myself,” Tomlin said.
One player, receiver Antonio Brown, was singled out for praise after having four catches for 64 yards.
“Antonio Brown appears to be in great physical condition, but we knew that before we stepped into the stadium tonight,” Tomlin said.
And as for everyone else?
“I look forward to this group responding to what we put out there tonight and understand that we have a lot of ground to cover,” Tomlin said. “Such is life. I’ll expect these guys to respond accordingly, and we’ll go back to work, we’ll assess this performance and it needs to be better quickly.”