The Pittsburgh Steelers started their 2024 preseason off on the wrong foot with what was a sloppy performance in a 20-12 loss to the Houston Texans.
Pittsburgh's offense was particularly sloppy in the first half. Quarterback Justin Fields and center Nate Herbig had a pair of fumbles on bad exchanges. Wide receiver Quez Watkins also muffed a punt that the Texans recovered and turned into points, and the Steelers had six penalties throughout the contest.
In all, the Steelers put the ball on the ground four times, with Kyle Allen, who threw an interception to close the game out, as well, accounting for the other fumble. Pittsburgh was fortunate to recover three of the four, though.
Following the game, head coach Mike Tomlin equated the Steelers' performance to that of a junior varsity team, which is certainly a fair assessment.
"Really a sloppy performance, to be honest with you," Tomlin said. "It's capable of happening, obviously, in the first preseason game, but not that we find comfort in that. We work too hard to have the results we had tonight. So it's disappointing.
"How we work off of it obviously will define us and we'll have a good rep at responding to negativity as we push into our next opportunity. We need to be significantly better. Taking nothing away from the Houston Texans, it's not about what they did, it was about the things that we didn't do or the wounds we inflicted to ourselves. Just looking at it from a special teams perspective, the field position and point standpoint, was JV."
Considering this was the Steelers' first preseason game, a sloppy start isn't exactly shocking, but that doesn't excuse how bad things went. We'll see how the Steelers respond in preseason Week 2 against the Buffalo Bills.
