The Steelers’ rough start has pushed Mike McCarthy into full fix-it mode.
At 2-2, Pittsburgh heads into Week 5 trying to steady itself against the Colts, and McCarthy isn’t sugarcoating where things stand. The offense has been uneven, the defense has slipped from its usual standard, and the pressure has shown up in plain sight - including on the sideline during Thursday night’s 27-24 loss to the Browns.
That game produced one of the clearest snapshots of the Steelers’ frustration. During Pittsburgh’s opening possession, Aaron Rodgers and McCarthy were caught on the broadcast exchanging expletives on the sideline while Rodgers waited for a play call.
Not long after, Roman Wilson scored a touchdown. McCarthy said afterward he would have chosen different words.
Earlier that week, Rodgers had also voiced frustration about the Steelers’ play-calling, and the same week the team traded Joey Porter Jr. to the Cowboys.
McCarthy’s response now is simple: tighten everything up and stop worrying about anything outside the building.
"We need to clean our own house," McCarthy said via The Athletic. "Our house is not clean right now."
The numbers back up the concern. Pittsburgh is averaging 317.8 total yards per game, which puts the team in the middle of the league.
The scoring output has been worse, with the Steelers sitting near the bottom at 20.3 points per game. Even the defense, usually the unit that gives Pittsburgh its edge, is only in the middle of the pack right now.
Rodgers has already been sacked 13 times.
The Colts are next, and McCarthy knows that won’t be a soft landing spot. He said the team will use practice time to "self-scout" and look for ways to improve both performance and morale.
"I get it, it’s Week 5. So, you’re hard-pressed to find a team or two that feels really good about where they are right now.
That’s the norm. So we’re going to stay after the focus of what we need to work on," McCarthy said via Trib Live.
"That’s what this weekend was about for me, and we’ve been working on it as a coaching staff, and we’ll have clear factors of what we need to do as far as cleaning our house, and then we’ll get ready to go beat Indianapolis."
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