Tomlin tries to downplay Gilbert's suspension

The show must go on.

At least that was Mike Tomlin's message Tuesday when asked about right tackle Marcus Gilbert's four-game suspension for a positive test for performance enhancing drugs.

"I really had no reaction," the Steelers' coach said Tuesday of Gilbert's suspension, which was announced Monday. "It’s just an adjustment, and oftentimes that’s the case. Sometimes you’re faced with adversity, and the things that you do in terms of how you respond to it define you. Thankfully for us, Chris Hubbard playing is nothing new for us. He’s played a lot this year. He’s done an awesome job of upholding the standard, so from that standpoint, I’m excited for him and excited to watch him meet the standard of expectation."

Gilbert being out doesn't just take him out of the lineup, starting with Sunday's game against Green Bay (5-5), it makes Hubbard unavailable as a sixth offensive lineman when the Steelers (8-2) want to use him at tight end.

"It stinks,” Ben Roethlisberger said on his weekly call-in show on 93.7-The Fan. “You hate to lose a guy like that for four games. When you’re missing a guy like that, it hurts us in terms of some of the extra stuff that we do, Hubbard is kind of our extra tight end, so our depth is hurt and some of the offensive stuff that we like to do is hurt as well."

They will have at least four more games to prove that losing Gilbert doesn't matter, starting this week against the Packers. The Steelers then play at Cincinnati and host Baltimore -- two teams they have already beaten with Hubbard in the lineup earlier this season -- before a crucial showdown with New England at Heinz Field Dec. 17.

Gilbert is eligible to return to the team Dec. 18.

It was an inopportune time for Gilbert to be suspended, but according to Roethlisberger, he was told to not file an appeal to ensure he would be around for the postseason.

“I think that he was still pretty much Marcus, but he knew (the suspension) was potentially coming,” Roethlisberger said. “I know we were all kind of in favor of him not trying to appeal this. Everyone’s saying, ‘Well, if you didn’t do anything wrong, then appeal it,’ this, that and the other, but how many times do you win appeals in the NFL? You can postpone them, but how does that help us if in three weeks, they’re like, 'Nope, you have to serve your four games?’”

Gilbert released a statement on Twitter Monday apologizing for the positive test, saying what he ingested was inadvertent. According to Roethlisberger, he told his teammates the same thing.

Gilbert has dealt with a hamstring injury this season that he suffered at the end of a Week 2 victory against Minnesota. He returned in Week 6 in a win at Kansas City but left after two offensive possessions and sat out the next month before returning to play the past two games against Indianapolis and Tennessee.

"He said to me it was a non-intentional thing," Roethlisberger said. "That being said, and I told the team, he knows we’re still responsible for what we (put into our bodies.) We can’t always take the word of a doctor or a nutritionist or things like that.

“I know he said that he asked the person, and they said that there was 100 percent, no chance that there was going to be an issue. So it’s tough. I don’t want to speak for him and all those things, but I believe him when he tells me that he did not intentionally do anything to harm this team or his body.”

To Tomlin's point regarding Hubbard's playing time, he has made five starts this season in place of an injured Gilbert. The Steelers are 3-2 in those games, but they have moved the ball, averaging just under 370 yards per game while allowing six sacks.

With Gilbert in the lineup they are 5-0. They are averaging just under 346 yards per game and have allowed eight sacks. But that doesn't tell the whole story. The Steelers have averaged 25.2 points per game when Gilbert starts, compared to 20.2 when Hubbard is in the lineup. It also does not necessarily involve home-road splits. Both have made three starts on the road and two at home.

Fact is, the Steelers have just been more efficient when Gilbert plays, especially in the red zone. They are 10-18 scoring touchdowns in the red zone with Gilbert in the lineup, 10-16 when two end-of-game situations the past two weeks are taken out of the equation. They are 7-23 in those same situations with Hubbard in the lineup.

Roethlisberger, bolstered by a four-touchdown performance last Thursday night in a 40-17 win over Tennessee, has thrown 11 touchdown passes and three interceptions in Gilbert's five starts. Marred by a five-interception game against Jacksonville, his numbers are five touchdowns and seven interceptions when Hubbard plays.

"Some of the red zone stuff when he was in there just didn’t go our way," center Maurkice Pouncey told me last week regarding Hubbard.

Pouncey has a point. Hubbard isn't to blame for dropped passes or overthrows in the end zone. But the stats are the stats. And the Steelers will have to hope they are just a statistical anomaly and not a trend.

And they'll have to wait and see how Gilbert responds when he returns to the team in a month. He is not permitted to have contact with the Steelers during his suspension.

"We’ll see. The nature of the suspension is one where he won’t be in the building on a day-to-day basis, so there won’t be a bunch of interaction," Tomlin said. "All of those things will probably be answered in terms of when he comes out of it."