The Pittsburgh Steelers locker room was a heated environment on Sunday in Orchard Park, courtesy of Arthur Maulet . The Steelers defensive back reportedly unloaded on teammates for their performance, or lack thereof, in the most embarrassing loss for the black and gold in 33 years. The former undrafted free agent entering his sixth season in the NFL spoke about the incident for the first time with the media on Thursday.
“I was heated,” Maulet shared. “We lost by 30. You’re not supposed to be happy about that. I reminded guys to find your why, find why you love this game and use that for your motivation. Look, I’m not here to point fingers. We keep that in house. It’s something I had to acknowledge,”Maulet said.
The Steelers have endured a firestorm of criticism after last week’s dreadful 38-3 performance against the Buffalo Bills. The team played so badly that the lone positive highlight that the national media focused on was Kenny Pickett taking a shot at Shaq Lawson for what he felt was a low blow. Maulet’s impassioned outburst came moments after the locker room was opened to the media.
“The locker room wasn’t even filled,” Maulet said. “It was taken out of proportion. I was just telling my guys that you have to find your love for the game again. Sometimes people forget because we’ve got a lot going on. The guys understand, there were no arguments or anything like that. It was just a simple fact that you have to have that want-to. You have to have something that drives you and you have to remind yourself.”
The Steelers have been fighting the perception for two seasons now that in certain games they have “given up” when they fall hopelessly behind. The Cincinnati Bengals called out the Steelers last season for giving up against them during the 2021 meetings. Those accusations were the fuel for the only Steelers victory thus far this season and perhaps the Buffalo backlash will inspire another heroic effort on Sunday in Acrisure stadium.
“It was a little motivation,” Maulet concluded. “We all were down. I was just reminding guys we gotta love what we do. Obviously, days like this (stink) when we lose by 30, but we can always bounce back and be better.”
The Steelers are more publicly dysfunctional than ever this season. The offensive coordinator is consistently getting reprieves but appears to be a dead man walking. The team’s star wide receiver, Diontae Johnson was involved in a war of words with fans and Ryan Clark from ESPN. The defensive captain, Cam Heyward accidentally “butt-tweeted” criticism of Mike Tomlin. Pittsburgh has packed a decade of controversy into the first five weeks of the 2022 season.
Pittsburgh has been a model organization for decades and Tomlin has been lauded as a player’s coach with a firm grasp of the locker room. The question becomes is Tomlin losing touch with his younger players or are the players revolting because they know that the game plans lack enough creativity to allow them to compete?
“It’s not about the X’s and Os,” Jimmy Johnson famously observed. “It’s about the Jimmy’s and Joe’s.”
In fairness to the Hall of Fame coach, it is a little about the Xs and Os. Superior talent can often overcome and overwhelm, but the Steelers do not have superior talent. They need effort and a solid plan and until they get it, controversy is going to follow the team. The Steelers will get a chance on Sunday at 1 p.m. to prove they have at least solved the effort part of the problem.
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