It looked like Mike Tomlin had a major controversy brewing on his hands. Shortly after the debacle in Kansas City, a number defensive players openly complained that they didn’t get the call on Matt Cassell’s 61 yard pass that led to Kansas City’s winning score.
At his Tuesday press conference Mike Tomlin informed that the play had been given on the previous down, totally dismissing such comments in clear an unequivocal language “knowledge of the call was not an issue in that circumstance.”
Speaking with reporters from the Tribuen-Review, Tyronne Carter clarified that the issue was on the field communication, not communication between the coaches and the players. Ryan Clark, for one stepped up to take responsibility, “No excuses. They just made a play. I knew what the play was. I’m not going to point the finger at anybody.”
It’s good to know that, for the moment at least, the Steelers locker room has not degenerated into a self-destructive finger pointing cycle.
It is also interesting to note that, at least to newspaper readers eyes, the Tribune-Review’s John Harris got a scoop on this one. The article appeared on the Tribune-Review’s website on Thanksgiving day, and there was no comparable mention of the same news on the Post-Gazette’s.
Friday morning came and went and, still, the news was not reported on the Post-Gazette’s on-line sports page. Ditto Saturday, no coverage of the communications mishap.
PG Plus?
The likely answer is that the Post-Gazette did cover the story, but in PG Plus. It is easy to see why the Post-Gazette would reserve such juicy story for this premium content section.
Yours truly did try to get a subscription to PG Plus, but ran into problems with Pay Pal and I simply not had time to “get around to it.” (For the record, I liked the Steelers related stuff on PG Plus during the time that I had access.)
The pratical effect of this is going to mean that I’ll make more of a point to check the Tribune-Review’s Steelers section, at least until I get the chance to sort out payment issues with PG Plus….
