Tomlin Talks About The Loss To The Chiefs

Coach Tomlin: Not enough detail and execution to secure a victory. Obviously, we were highly penalized. In my opinion, some of those calls were suspect, but such is life in August. It’s preseason for those guys as well. I liked the effort of a lot of people. We have to make the necessary plays though to get out of the stadium in situations like that. We let the quarterback get away from us and things of that nature. We were penalized on drives that they scored on and that’s kind of been characteristic of us. If we remain penalty-free defensively, we’re a tough team to drive the ball on. We’ve got to understand that. We’ve got to be cleaner. Obviously, we can’t give up kickoff returns. We’ll look at that and continue to get better, hopefully, and press forward as we prepare for Carolina and bring a close to this preseason. On the injury front, Curtis Brown got shaken up. He was evaluated and was deemed healthy enough to get back in the game and he did. Jarvis Jones is being evaluated for an upper body injury as we speak.

Did you see what happened to Jarvis Jones?
I did not see what happened. They were looking at him in there, so I don’t have great detail. Obviously, he walked off under his own power but he’s being looked at right now.

Are you generally more pleased with how the first-team offense performed tonight?
I try to secure victory. Obviously, I’ll analyze this tomorrow but tonight – we come into stadiums to win regardless of what time of the year it is and we didn’t do that tonight. So, I’m not evaluating any portion of it. I’m evaluating the complete body of work. It wasn’t good enough.

Does it feel like at times you are taking one step forward and two steps backwards?
That’s just part of team development. It happens this time of year, not that you accept it. It’s just, unfortunately, at times characteristic of this time of year. We better get it fixed quickly because obviously we’re running out of time.

Can you talk about the trade for Felix Jones?
Obviously, we’re short at the running back position. Isaac Redman didn’t play today, LaRod Stephens-Howling didn’t play today and Le’Veon Bell didn’t play today. We had an opportunity to acquire a guy that’s a known commodity in the NFL. We got him in here at the eleventh hour. I thought he did a nice job in terms of preparing and being able to do something for us in the game. We’ll continue to get to know him.