Mike Tomlin left Ben Roethlisberger and the Steelers’ playoff chances on the bench

After a tumultuous start to the season, the Steelers found some rhythm, rattling off six straight wins and taking over the top spot in the AFC North. Then they lost two in a row, to the Broncos and the Chargers, and their rhythm turned into a familiar drumbeat of chaos. But what better than a game against the lowly Raiders to find the beat again?

Nope. The Mike Tomlin experience was in full effect. A game that began with the Steelers as 10.5-point favorites turned into a last-minute loss, one questionable decision at a time, to make it three ‘Ls’ in a row, leaving their playoff fate now hanging in the balance.

Tomlin probably should have challenged an iffy catch by Raiders tight end Derek Carrier in the third quarter. That one ultimately didn’t matter since the Raiders fumbled it away four plays later.

Then, there was the usual clock management difficulty. Clinging to a tenuous 21-17 lead in the final two minutes and with the Raiders driving down the field, Tomlin held onto his last two timeouts instead of using them to stop the clock and leave the offense more time at the end of the game. He probably should have taken one after a 39-yard play that got the Raiders to the Steelers’ 7-yard line. Or maybe after one of the next two plays.

Instead, he waited until third-and-6 with just 25 seconds left on the clock to finally call a timeout. The Raiders scored on the next play, and the Steelers’ offense got the ball back with just 15 seconds on the clock.

After a pretty incredible hook and ladder play (similar to what the Dolphins used to beat the Patriots) that helped put the Steelers in reasonable field goal range, kicker Chris Boswell lost his footing on Oakland’s garbage field and missed the game-tying kick.

Not challenging an iffy play and clock management issues were bad enough, but these are kind of routine bad decisions for Tomlin.

The most bafflingly dumb decision, the one that’s going to light up talk radio in the Steele City this week and maybe into January if the Steelers end up missing the playoffs is his call to leave Ben Roethlisberger on the sidelines in favor of backup Josh Dobbs when they could have been building up an insurmountable lead in a game they should have easily won.

A player gets injured, gets checked out, and then is either taken out of the game or cleared to return. It’s a fairly standard procedure. Not for the Steelers, who seem to have a knack for infusing drama into damn near everything they do.

Roethlisberger left the game with a rib injury at halftime, but he came back with the Steelers trailing the Raiders, 17-14, with 5:21 left to play.

He could have come back sooner, according to Tomlin. But how much sooner? “A series or so sooner” according to the coach’s postgame remarks.

So why didn’t he? Because they didn’t want to interrupt the “rhythm and flow of the game” with Dobbs in at quarterback, Tomlin said

Anyone watching the game could tell you that the Steelers weren’t in much of a rhythm or a flow with Dobbs. The series before Roethlisberger returned was a three-and-out. The series before that, late in the third quarter, ended with an interception. The series before that ended when Dobbs couldn’t convert on fourth-and-1 just across midfield. The series before that ... well, you get the idea.

Dobbs went 4-for-9 with 24 yards and an interception. Rhythm and flow, baby!

When asked about it after the game, Roethlisberger just said: “I was just waiting for coach to tell me when to go.”

None of which tells us much about why he didn’t get back in the game until late in the fourth quarter, after the Raiders scored a go-ahead touchdown to make it 17-14. It does sort of backup Tomlin’s suggestion at least that he could have been back in there sooner.

And had he been back in there sooner, it’s hard not to think that the Steelers might have had a bigger lead than they did when Oakland scored.

It sounds ridiculous, but there is precedent for Tomlin’s team looking past their current opponent a week before a date with New England.

Josh Harris, who spent a season with the Steelers in 2014, made that suggestion on Twitter during the game.

Except Dobbs couldn’t beat Oakland or do much of anything.

Harris is not a reliable source on this. That’s just his opinion, and I wouldn’t be giving it much credence if we hadn’t seen the Steelers choke because they got ahead of themselves the week before a Patriots game.

Hell, more than that. Remember the locker room video during the playoffs in the 2016 season, before the Steelers lost to the Patriots in the conference championship? Or Tomlin’s interview with Tony Dungy last season where he was talking about a game against the Patriots that was still almost a month away? The Steelers clearly have a white whale problem with the Patriots.

Harris’ tweet aside, it’s not unreasonable that the Steelers really did think they’d be fine letting Dobbs finish out the game against the Raiders. Though without running back James Conner it’s less defensible.

Maybe they just didn’t want to risk Roethlisberger with lead in the division and the Ravens having lost to the Chiefs earlier in the day. But having lost their last two games prior to this one, they really shouldn’t have been taking any chances they didn’t have to.

We may have to wait until later this week when inevitable blame game inside the Steelers’ leaky locker room goes public to know what really happened with Roethlisberger.

Had Boswell made that kick, the Steelers’ issues could have all been swept under the rug this week, waiting to return next week against the Patriots or in another disappointing playoff loss, IF they get that far.