AP

The Steelers knew that without quarterback Ben Roethlisberger yesterday, other parts of the roster were going to have to play better.

They decidedly did not, and Steelers linebacker Ryan Shazier owned his part of it.

“We’re looking like garbage right now,” Shazier said, via Chris Adamski of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “[Opposing offenses] can do whatever they want to do right now.”

While harsh in tone, it may also not be inaccurate, as the Patriots hit them for enough big plays to turn an otherwise decent day into a loss.

Of the 362 yards allowed (below their average), the Patriots gained 117 of them on four plays, two of them deep balls to tight end Rob Gronkowski. Those chunk plays were the difference.

Shazier said the early plan on Gronkowski was good, but the Steelers may have fiddled too much with their defense.

“We were giving them calls that Tom didn’t like, and I guess when we changed up a little bit and [Brady] got to seeing things he liked, they took advantage of it,” Shazier said.

“When you think about it, they weren’t having a lot of success,” linebacker Arthur Moats said. “And then you throw those two [Gronkowski] plays in the second half, you look at the scoreboard, and that ends up being the difference.

“It’s definitely frustrating. But we’re not looking for comfort. We understand that we dropped the ball with that, execution-wise, a couple plays where we really just didn’t execute the way we needed to, and that’s the difference in the game. It’s frustrating because we know how good we can be, but at the end of the day, when you’re making those mistakes and we‘re not executing the way we need to, you gotta deal with the result.”

And the result was rubbish, according to Shazier.