CINCINNATI -- "We can’t keep playing like this. It’s embarrassing."
That was T.J. Watt, his eyes down, his voice barely audible, his hands gripping either edge of the podium as if he'd preferred to project it through the nearest drywall.
And he was right ... about the embarrassing part.
But the part about how the Steelers can't keep playing like this ... man, I'm not so sure. Not after a 41-10 emasculation by the Bengals on this Sunday at Paul Brown Stadium. Not after Joe Mixon ripped through their run defense for 165 yards and two touchdowns. Not after Joe Burrow completed all but four of his 24 passes for 290 yards, plus a running touchdown of his own. Not after Tee Higgins' six catches for 114 yards.
As Cam Heyward caustically worded it, "We sucked out there."
Yep. And that goes double after conceding 41 points to each of the past two opponents, including the 41-37 loss a week earlier in Inglewood, Calif.
Against the Chargers, it was accompanied by an asterisk: No. T.J. No Minkah Fitzpatrick. No Joe Haden.
Here, the only one missing was Haden .
Here, there was no late rally to seize as a positive.
Here, there was nothing laudable. Not a damned thing. Not any player. Not any facet. Not so much as a solitary teaching/learning moment.
Here, to cut this conversation right to the bone, was an actual thing that happened:
That's Devin Bush. The Steelers traded up to No. 10 overall in the NFL Draft to secure his rights.
It was sunny and a semi-mild 44 degrees, but that up there is a hard freeze. For whatever reason, Bush hadn't processed that the play had begun. He simply stood there, his hands on his knees, for nearly two full seconds before snapping out of it.
And this was after the game's second play from scrimmage saw Mixon become the latest to stroll through the Bush turnstile:
And after Bush subsequently was flagged for being offside.
And after Bush subsequently was benched for the rest of that drive.
And after Bush subsequently was right back out there on the Bengals' next possession.
This isn't to isolate blame on Bush. That'd be idiotic. But it is to underscore this no-longer-underlying reality: The solutions are awfully scarce to address any player performing at the Bush level.
So when I opened Mike Tomlin's postgame press conference by asking if he'll consider personnel changes after this -- a question he'd never normally answer, by the way -- and this was his response ...
... I'll admit that my very next thought was, 'OK, but even if he really is 'open to doing whatever's required to change what's trending,' who'd replace anyone?'
For Bush, there isn't anyone. Robert Spillane, who can't cover but was still being utilized only on passing downs to try to compensate for Bush's shortcomings, hurt his knee in the second quarter here and didn't return. Buddy Johnson, a fourth-round rookie, isn't ready. Ulysees Gilbert, Marcus Allen ... no and no.
Worse, Tomlin and the coaching staff appear to be accepting that Bush is damaging the defense. I don't know how else to characterize it. Both Tomlin and Keith Butler refuse to criticize him in the slightest and, to the contrary, praise him for participating at all since he's little more than a year removed from major knee surgery. But calling his work to date "spotty," as Tomlin did the other day, and playing him, playing him, playing him ... that's either delusional or dangerously off.
Worse by far, Bush keeps right on disintegrating. He's doing the opposite of improving. He's missing more tackles, making more mistakes than ever.
And some version of this scenario now applies at multiple positions. I’m talking about needing a nose tackle. And another defensive tackle or two or four. And another inside linebacker or two or four. And another corner or two, plus a nickel to spare. And the entire bleeping offensive line, including backups. And a deep-threat wide receiver. And second and third running backs.
Am I missing anything?
Oh, right … a new quarterback.
This, my friends, is a frightening place for a football franchise to be. All the more when the front office might be failing to even recognize any of this.
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It’s not about one game.
It’s not about 0-2-1 the past three weeks or the 586 rushing yards they've softly conceded or tying the Lions or even the season as a whole.
No, when the talent’s deteriorating at all of those aforementioned positions, it’s never overnight. It’s been building — or beginning to crumble, to be more precise — over the past three years, as I see it. Maybe it began when Ben Roethlisberger got hurt. Or with Antonio Brown’s exit netting only a third-rounder and fifth-rounder in return. Or that those picks were used to trade up for Bush. Or overpaying Eric Ebron. Or under-valuing Vince Williams. Or mis-judging the respective circumstances of David DeCastro and Stephon Tuitt. Or my persistent pet peeve of somehow passing through free agency and the trade deadline with $10.25 million in unused cap space. Or generally creating a payroll structure with no middle class, preventing the retention of even the ordinary likes of Matt Feiler, Steven Nelson and newly christened pick-six artist Mike Hilton.
Who’s at fault for all that?
Start, as with any operation, at the top.
Art Rooney II had decreed publicly back in January that the running game would be the top priority for 2021. But, other than to oversee the drafting of Najee Harris, if any other directive was put in place to ensure there’d be someone to block for the kid — or the 39-year-old quarterback, for that matter — it sure wasn’t put into motion.
Bold leadership there. Decree and hope.
Colbert could've taken care of that unilaterally, no doubt, so he hardly dodges blame. The same GM who'd once built a decade's worth of stability on the O-line one high draft pick at a time, suddenly reached the conclusion that it'd be fine to replace the Maurkice Pouncey group with three children bookended by Chuks Okorafor and Zach Banner, the latter of whom was decreed a projected starter despite having one NFL start to his name and despite recovering from knee surgery. This blew my mind at the time, and that sentiment's only strengthened since Colbert additionally made but a single O-line acquisition -- Trai Turner through free agency -- after DeCastro's departure.
More bold leadership. More decree and hope.
Still, I'm infinitely more inclined to focus on Tomlin, if only because of his powerful personality and authoritative voice in all football matters. It takes mere minutes in any team setting to appreciate what I'm describing. He's not just the head coach in a figurehead way. He's the identity.
So, for example, when Kendrick Green reports for camp, and gets assigned Pouncey's No. 53, that's all Tomlin. And when Green, Dan Moore and Kevin Dotson start in preseason games and get pulled after one quarter, the way veterans would, that's all Tomlin. And when all three of those players struggle immensely into the season but never get replaced by backups who'd outperformed them in various other settings, that's all Tomlin, too.
He, like Rooney, had an idea. He wanted it to be the right idea. And then he hoped.
The same's happening with Bush. Tomlin loves him. So does Colbert. He was going to be, once and for all, their Ryan Shazier successor. And obviously, both those men invested a ton of capital and their reputations as evaluators in doing what they did to get him. And I get that. Coaches and GMs can get branded for life by moves of that magnitude. But now, when Bush hasn't shown a fraction of Shazier's fire or talent, and when we're seeing no action from Tomlin or from above toward addressing this excruciatingly visible problem -- Chris Hoke, the former nose tackle, spoke on WDVE-FM yesterday that, when Bush is on the field, "the Steelers are trying to play defense with 10 guys" -- that's prioritizing trying to be right over what's best.
I'll take this a step further: It can't be coincidence that this defense has become more porous, easier to run through since Bush's ongoing decline. Meaning that poor tackling and failing to fly to the football can become contagious, just as the opposite can be the case. That's not to exonerate anyone else doing it right now but, rather, to underscore that it's got to start somewhere.
Bush still taking regular snaps, unmistakably, starts with Tomlin.
He's decreeing that Bush is fine, and he's hoping he's right.
This isn't smart, sound management. This, in fact, is what happens when management's been too long on the job. When so many things in the past have gone right that one can come to adopt a magic-wand, we-spoke-it-and-therefore-it-must-be-so approach.
I'm not naive enough -- not yet, anyway -- to call for firing Tomlin, much less to forecast it'll ever happen. It's not how the Rooneys have rolled, and that's been far more a blessing than a curse. I'm on record as believing that Tomlin will be the head coach here for as long as he'd like. And Colbert always seems to be a year away from retirement, so that'd apply with him, too. He'll be replaced when he wants to be, and that'll be sooner rather than later.
But the leadership component can't wait. Ultimately, everything that was witnessed here on this day emanated from the top. Same place the solutions will have to originate.
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And then, naturally, they'll have to trickle down.
Start by ditching both of these clueless coordinators.
Matt Canada's grossly overmatched at this level, lacking imagination, any sense of rhythm and, occasionally, even a basic awareness of NFL offenses. This football lifer on this day looked down at the scoreboard with a 38-point deficit in the second half and kept right on dialing up sideways passes and short runs.
Keith Butler ... flatly put, I've seen enough and heard enough. If a coordinator's own boss doesn't trust him -- and Tomlin doesn't -- why in hell should I? Because he scripted out a plan for a defense with multiple All-Pro talents that could vomit up 82 points in an eight-day span?
Those two are obvious, though.
This has to be Ben's final year. And as such, a bona fide trial period for Mason Rudolph -- the only quarterback signed for 2022 -- makes sense this season. Make it respectful to Ben, but make it happen. The team comes first.
Consider some hybrid form of a rebuild. No one associated with the Steelers would have the stomach for the full, blow-it-all-up model, so here again, I'm not going to be naive enough to call for it or forecast it. But an honest reloading can occur far more quickly in the NFL than in any other North American league, and that's a reasonable compromise while continuing to forever employ Watt and Heyward. There's roughly $60 million in cap space coming next spring, and that could check off a nice chunk of all those needs.
Don't find one quarterback but two. There'll be veterans galore on the market, but nothing precludes also adding a first-rounder. There's no one close to a Trevor Lawrence in this class, so any rookie would need time. Do it the Green Bay way. Have both in the fold, one of them waiting in the wings.
Otherwise, dig deep into the trenches with that draft. O-line and D-line. They don't all need to be the next Cam, but I'll take a Marcus Gilbert in the second round, a Javon Hargrave in the third. Load up. Go overboard, including free agents. Nothing, not even quarterback, would bring about a big change.
Let JuJu Smith-Schuster know he'd be welcome back. He's not the field-stretcher they really need, but he'd be a huge help to a new quarterback, he'd likely again be affordable, and he shows us all daily how much he loves it here.
I could go on. One gets the idea.
Oh, wait, I almost forgot this: Use these final few games to restore some semblance of whatever currently constitutes the Steelers' 'Way,' a term tossed about by more than one team captain afterward. Because that can't afford to be put on hold.
"There's a Steeler Way, and it's fighting until the end," Ben responded when asked about being one of several starters Tomlin utilized to the bitter end. I thought, for the most part, we did that. Guys showed their character at the end."
Whether one agrees or disagrees with Tomlin's decision -- I hated it -- I can respect the spirit of that statement.
"We had to call more blitzes because we weren't getting off blocks," Heyward responded when asked about the run defense. "There's a level of respect and tradition when you put on that Steelers uniform. That means getting off blocks and stopping the damned run. And we did not do that today."
To that end, he vowed he'd push his teammates "even harder" in practice.
That won't mean much to the present. This season's as done as a Thanksgiving turkey left in the oven all weekend. Even in a down AFC, even with the math of a 5-5-1 record not being all that foreboding, there's ample evidence at hand that there's no surge ahead.
Start over, at least as much as is feasible.
And make it an inspired start by preaching to all newcomers to the fold that it's not OK, under any circumstance at any stage of anything, to lose by 31 at this particular place:

DEJAN KOVACEVIC / DKPS
National anthem, Sunday afternoon, Paul Brown Stadium, Cincinnati.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Live file
• Scoreboard
• Schedule
• Standings
• Statistics
THE INJURIES
• Robert Spillane, linebacker, injured his knee in the second quarter and was immediately ruled out
• Joe Haden, cornerback, was inactive for a second consecutive game with a sprained foot
• J.C. Hassenauer, guard, was added to the Reserve/Injured list this week with a pectoral injury
• Eric Ebron, tight end, was placed on the Reserve/Injured list this week with a knee injury
THE AFC NORTH
• Baltimore
• Cincinnati
• Cleveland
THE SCHEDULE
Next: Ravens at home ...

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