PITTSBURGH -- Observed and heard in the locker room after the Pittsburgh Steelers' 27-24 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Coach Mike Tomlin took the blame after the Steelers fell to 2-2 with a last-second loss to the 1-3 Buccaneers. “The bottom line is we are an undisciplined group,” Tomlin said. “We are too highly penalized. Obviously we are not coaching it. We are allowing it to happen.” The Steelers were penalized 13 times for 125 yards, and they are averaging 11 penalties per game. “We kicked our own butt today with penalties,” Tomlin said. “We have to fix it. I have to fix it, and I will.”
Mike Mitchell summed up the overwhelming feeling in a gloomy locker room after the Steelers couldn’t protect a late lead against a previously winless team at Heinz Field. “I feel sick,” the Steelers free safety said late Sunday afternoon. The Steelers allowed quarterback Mike Glennon to march the Buccaneers 46 yards in 33 seconds for the winning touchdown. Glennon made his first start of the season Sunday, but Mitchell played against him in 2013 while with the Carolina Panthers. “He is who we thought he was,” Mitchell said. “Golly, that will be a sound bite.”
James Harrison played a handful of snaps in his first game back with the Steelers and was the same old Harrison -- at least in the locker room. As a group of reporters stood in front of Cameron Heyward’s locker waiting for the defensive end to talk, Harrison growled to a cameraman, “Get your feet off my bag.” Harrison wasn’t credited with any tackles or quarterback hits in the loss to the Buccaneers. But Harrison, who has been back with the Steelers for less than a week, didn’t give himself a pass after practicing for the first time in more than nine months on Wednesday. “I’m part of the mental errors,” Harrison said of the mistakes the Steelers committed.
