Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Singular Focus. Obviously.


One issue Joey Porter's Pit Bulls would like to hear Mike Tomlin address is this:

"What will the Steelers do differently in 2014 to be ready for the start of the season?"

There's no disputing the Steelers weren't ready for the 2013 season. They went 0-4 in the pre-season, 0-4 to start the regular season and closed out the first half at 2-6, capped in spectacular embarrassment by the exclamation mark of a 55-31 thrashing by the New England Patriots.

They simply weren't ready to start the season, and you could see they wouldn't be, even as the pre-season unfolded . It was inexcusable.

If they had been ready, there is no way they would have lost the home opener to Tennessee. There's no way they would have given up 40 points in a home loss to the Bears in Week 3. There's no way they would have lost to Minnesota at any location, including London.  Let alone Oakland.

At this point, it's almost easy to overlook the fact that the Steelers had an easy schedule for the 2013 season, thanks to their lousy showing in 2012.

What now?

“That (one game at a time approach is) something that stops a bad problem from becoming worse,” said Tomlin at his post-season news conference on Monday.

“The No. 1 key to getting out of a hole is to stop digging, and I believe that’s what the singular focus allowed us to do. To stop digging. Not to worry about what we had done to get ourselves into the position we were in, but to look singularly forward at the challenge that’s in front of us. That’s what I’m talking about when I talk about having the ability to focus on this week’s challenge.”

This week's challenge: Prepare now for Week 1 of the 2014 season.