Week 11 Blog: A step forward

Monday, November 14

A step back means a step forward: Sometimes you need to step away from something to turn things around, and that’s what the Steelers did last week during their bye.

And it worked.

The players had four consecutive days off which is mandated league-wide for a bye weekend. It allowed players the opportunity to collect their thoughts, evaluate their own play and figure out what they need to do internally to help turn things around.

“I think it helped a lot,” said guard Kevin Dotson. “You get out of the mindset you were in. You get a fresh look, a fresh start. You don’t think about what happened in the past. I think that helped us move forward, have more confidence so we are able to play are actual brand we want to play. We have to keep it going.

“I feel like every week we had the chance for this type of game. Those games didn’t click. This is the game that clicked. This is how our offense is supposed to look. Everything clicked.

“It boosts the confidence. You want to build off it. You don’t want to dwell on it. You just want to move to the next game and know what you are capable of when you see it.”

One of the key factors before the team headed off for their bye was some of the conversations that took place in meeting rooms. It was open conversation, holding everyone accountable for the struggles and working on cohesion amongst all.

“It was eye opening for some people,” said Dotson. “Some people we already knew what it was, it just had to be said out loud. Once we cleared the air on everything, cleared up anything anyone was uncomfortable with, coaches did too. Coach T (Mike Tomlin) opened the air up for everybody. He could feel the rooms weren’t too cohesive. Now we started meeting as a whole offensive unit watching film instead of separately. We’ll watch it separately, but we’ll watch it as an offensive team, defensive team watch theirs, so we can see where everybody is coming from.”

Tight end Pat Freiermuth felt like it was heathy conversation, no tension, just talking to each other.

“I feel like we came together, talked things out, understood what we wanted as players and coaches and figured that out,” said Freiermuth. “It was good understanding our roles. I think we did a great job coming together and starting to put things together. There was obviously an issue. I feel like we started to figure it out.

“I don’t think there was any tension built up. Everyone was just frustrated with losing and obviously our job is to win. Whatever we can do to help make that process of winning is what we are going to do.”