Sunday Night Football saw two AFC giants battle it out in an offensive showdown between the Los Angeles Chargers and Pittsburgh Steelers. LA came out victorious in the monumental game concerning conference playoff seeding and there have - predictably - been many fans across the league putting Pittsburgh head coach Mike Tomlin's schemes into question. It turns out, those criticisms are pretty warranted.
Agreed. A linebacker on Keenan Allen? Might as well stick a nose tackle on him!
Okay, does Keith Butler know who Allen is? At this point covering him like that was not only incredibly dumb but also disrespectful.
Going after your own players before your obviously lackluster game-plan? That's just plain wrong.
In case those linebacker coverage calls on Allen weren't enough, here are two more!
Because using a linebacker to cover one of the best wideouts in the league isn't a bad enough idea, let's go ahead and give the guy who's been cut six times that task. Genius.
Yeah, I'm waiting for the incredible amount of ineptitude to end too.
First play of the game?
Last key play of the game?
In between, PIT used the most LB coverage on a targeted WR since @NextGenStats charting existed.
To summarize, Tomlin and Butler sucked last night. How do you continuously keep a linebacker on one of the best wide receivers in the game? It's not like the Steelers lost by much, either. At 33-30, stopping just one of the completions to ​Allen might've flipped the score.
As Sharp said, if Pittsburgh ever wants to get past a team like the New England Patriots, this isn't going to get it done.