Mike Tomlin: That sucked, junior varsity is not good enough

Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin didn't try to sugarcoat anything when it came to assessing his team's play against the Chiefs on Christmas.

Tomlin said "that sucked" when discussing the 29-10 loss that continued the team's downward spiral. The Steelers were 10-3, but they've been blown out in three straight games and now find themselves looking up at the Ravens in AFC North heading into the final week of the regular season.

Sunday's loss featured costly turnovers, untimely penalties, shaky special teams play, and a defense that couldn't sack Patrick Mahomes as he picked them apart on four touchdown drives. That kind of combination has been a through line in the losing streak and Tomlin said the team has to find ways to change what they are doing in a hurry.

"You can look at it from a lot of angles. The bottom line is junior varsity is not good enough," Tomlin said, via the team's website. "We've got to own that. But we've also got to look at what it is we need to do different. We're not going to continue to do the same things and hope for a different result. That doesn't seem sharp to me. So we're going to take a hard look at this. We've got a couple extra days before we get back into it. We're going to take a look at it and make whatever necessary changes we need to make in the totality of this thing, because again, that doesn't feel good. It doesn't look good. That's just the truth and reality of it."

The Steelers are in the playoffs regardless of what happens against the Bengals in Week 18, but Tomlin's words make it clear that they won't be there for long if they keep putting up the kinds of performances we've seen the last three weeks.