After Sunday's loss to the Buffalo Bills, Mike Tomlin was asked if the answers are in the building.
"Certainly," he said.
He was asked why he's so confident of that.
"Keep watching," Tomlin said.
At his weekly press conference Tuesday, Tomlin was asked to elaborate on that confidence, as the Steelers prepare to travel to Baltimore for a showdown between the leaders of the AFC North Division.
"Our process, for us, is a thing for me," Tomlin said. "It's what we do. It's no different than what you guys do. You guys might write a bad article or a couple of bad articles. Does it lessen your confidence in your ability to write articles the next time? I imagine it doesn't because you've been doing it all your adult lives. It's the same for us as individuals or a collective in this business.
"Certainly, our last performance wasn't up to snuff. But I don't know that it lessens our belief in self, or our ability to deliver individually and collectively moving forward."
The Steelers are coming off a game in which the Bills rushed for 249 yards, the most since they allowed 299 rushing yards against the Ravens in last season's playoff game. Both numbers have Tomlin's attention this week.
"Certainly we're looking at strategic, global things from a strategy or schematic standpoint," he said. "But we're also looking at the division of labor and the positions that we put players in, how we adjust and adapt and communicate, particularly when that gets strained due to player availability or lack thereof. And so, some of those things, and all of those things, are a component of the decision-making process."
From a player-availability perspective, inside linebacker and playcaller Patrick Queen, a former Raven, is questionable at this point, meaning limited in practice per Tomlin, with a glute injury. He left the last game at the two-minute warning of the first half.
The Steelers were also without first-round draft pick Derrick Harmon, a defensive tackle. He's out again this week with a knee injury.
In Harmon's place, fellow rookie Yahya Black made 9 tackles, a season-high for Steelers defensive linemen and the most tackles by a Steelers lineman since Cam Heyward made 10 tackles in last season's playoff loss to the Ravens.
Harmon and Black were the Steelers' response to that loss.
"You saw our emphasis in the draft around big people, fortifying our depth in that area, and certainly it's been required," Tomlin said. "That depth with young people like Yahya and O (Esezi Otomewo) and others, is significant. You can't run out of bigs. If you run out of bigs in AFC North ball, you're running on the beach."
The dangerous aspect of the Ravens' running game is that it's a two-headed monster, led by quarterback Lamar Jackson and running back Derrick Henry.
While Jackson rushed for 81 yards on 15 carries in the playoff game, Henry gained 186 yards on 26 carries and scored a pair of touchdowns.
"We're talking about a legendary runner of this generation in Derrick Henry," Tomlin said Tuesday. "Although Derrick has great speed, and when he gets into the secondary he's a problem, you really want to work hard to minimize his downhill. Because, when he gets downhill on you, you really feel it. That's when he starts bumper-car-ing and bouncing off of people, and you want to eliminate that component his game."
While in that game – as in the game against the Bills – the Steelers' run defense struggled, the group has also come up big at times this season. The Steelers held the NFL's No. 2 rushing team, the Bears, to 99 yards on the ground, and the NFL's leading rusher, Jonathan Taylor, to a season-low 45 yards on the ground.
"The beautiful thing about this league is that week in and week out you start anew," Tomlin said. "There's certainly, particularly at this point of the year, some evidence of who you are, and evidence of who your opponents are. But from a strategy standpoint, you better start at ground zero. You better build. And that's what we're in the process of doing today and this week in an effort to put out a better performance this week."
