As Chiefs round into form, 'ju...

Mike Tomlin didn’t like the performance.

But the Pittsburgh Steelers head coach had a name for it.

“Junior varsity,” Tomlin said Wednesday after a 29-10 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. “It’s not good enough. We got to own that.”

The Steelers can own now the deficiencies that have derailed their AFC North title hopes and produced a three-game losing streak.

Or, they can own these troubling trends after an early postseason exit. Because that’s the road the Steelers are headed down if this formula continues to repeat itself.

In three straight games against playoff-bound opponents, the Steelers have managed fewer than 20 points each game and allowed more than 27 each time. Twice, Pittsburgh has lost the turnover battle. Repeatedly, penalties and missed opportunities have doomed the offense, defense and special teams alike.

“Not the type of ball we want to play and really kinda eerily similar to our last performance in that we’re not doing the fundamental things well enough,” Tomlin said. “In terms of schematics, in terms of the division of labor, I’m open to whatever’s necessary in an effort to change the outcome.

“We’re not going to continue to do the same things and hope for a different result.”

The Steelers (10-6) have already clinched a playoff berth for the 12th time in Tomlin’s 18 seasons at the helm. Tomlin’s streak without a losing record has stretched to all 18 of those years.

But the coach who’s won that often and that consistently knows that he cannot simply dismiss losses to the Philadelphia Eagles, Baltimore Ravens and now Chiefs even if they don’t count toward postseason advancement. Because Tomlin is not simply concerned that the Steelers are losing. He’s concerned with how and why and, quite frankly, when the losses are mounting.

With one regular-season game against the Cincinnati Bengals standing between the Steelers and the wild-card round, time is running out.

It may already be too late to save the division title, which Pittsburgh lost control of Wednesday when the Baltimore Ravens beat the Houston Texans. But it's not too late to position themselves to compete for a playoff win.

“We got to make sure we end this last game on the right footing and right belief,” quarterback Russell Wilson said. “Because we want to catch the momentum going into the playoffs in the right way.”

Without reversing turnover trends, Steelers unlikely to rebound

NFL coaches preach winning the turnover battle so excessively that it begins to sound cliché.

But the Steelers’ dropoffs in offensive ball security and defensive takeaways have cost them this month.

During the first 14 weeks of the season, the Steelers posted the league’s second-best turnover margin, averaging 1.31 more takeaways than giveaways, per TruMedia data. No defense was better at ball-hawking than Pittsburgh’s in that stretch, forcing 2.14 turnovers per game. On offense, the Steelers’ 0.85 turnovers per game tied for sixth-best.

The Steelers won 10 of 13 games during that stretch, leading the league with a 4:59 time-of-possession advantage that helped them score 24.85 points (10th best) even when some drives stalled.

The last three weeks paint a different picture.

During this losing streak, the Steelers have fallen from second in turnover margin to to 20th, their giveaways and takeaways rankings now 19th and 18th, respectively. (Most teams have not played this week yet, but all TruMedia data reflects a per-game average.)