Critical wins: The Steelers have been in some tight games in 2026, pulling out victories in any manner possible.<\/p>\n
It’s those tight wins that can teach you the most about your team, your culture, and your approach.<\/p>\n
And Coach Mike McCarthy has learned plenty about his team lately.<\/p>\n
“It’s great. We need these games, trust me,” said McCarthy. “I’d like to win by 21 points every week, but you need these games. I’ve had an experience being 15-1 and not having really any close games, and then you get to the playoffs, and whoa, here you go, now you’re in one.<\/p>\n
“So, dance those dances, have those memories. I think it’s all part of your journey and what you can help try to emulate for your team.<\/p>\n
“But close games are critical. Cleveland has won a bunch of close games. That pays forward.”<\/p>\n
The most recent close game was the team’s 16-10 win over the New Orleans Saints in Paris, where the team got into the end zone only once.<\/p>\n
They had to rely on kicker Chris Boswell for three field goals, including one with time running out in the first half and no timeouts that was a scramble to even get set for.<\/p>\n
“Everybody talks about being comfortable in those moments,” said McCarthy. “Everybody trains game management. Everybody trains those situations week in and week out, going all the way back to the OTAs.<\/p>\n
“But to have it in live action, the thunder, the rush on field goal for us right at the end of the half, I don’t know how many times we practiced that, and our guys, bang, they nailed it. It was perfect. You have to have those moments in live action.<\/p>\n
“With that, I do, I feel like we’re building confidence, we’re stacking it. I think there’s a tremendous amount that comes off of that win, especially on the road. The travel stress\u2026stress is additive, whether it’s physical, emotional, mental. That’s a reality of life. It’s a reality of how I feel, how you need to train the team.”<\/p>\n
McCarthy felt a good feel from the team on the trip to Paris, from playing cards on the plane to interaction in the team hotel and of course, how they played.<\/p>\n
“I love the vibe of our guys. I like the cards, I like the interaction,” said McCarthy. “I liked everything about the trip because it wasn’t easy. It wasn’t easy for anybody. There’s a lot of good that comes out of it. Most importantly, we won, and that’s where you can put the stamp on it.<\/p>\n
“Your preparation is separate from the performance. It’s human nature to think, oh, we didn’t prepare right. That’s why we didn’t win the game. Or we prepared so good, why didn’t we win the game?<\/p>\n
“I think you’ve really got to watch that, but if you see things in your preparation during the course of the week and then they show up on Sundays, that’s the responsibility of us as coaches. And that’s where I’ll kick myself and say, I saw that on Wednesday and I didn’t re-do it on Thursday, those types of things, because things can carry. You get what you emphasize.<\/p>\n
“I think in today’s world generationally, it’s raising children, you get what you tolerate too. I think you’ve just got to be conscientious of those things as you break seasons into quarters or trimesters, or you talk about the importance of close games. All this is very important in putting together a run, and we’re trying to complete a four-game run right now. That’s what we set out to do. We’ve got a chance to do it here at home. So, we’re right where we need to be.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Critical wins: The Steelers have been in some tight games in 2026, pulling out victories in any manner…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[562,129082,564,563,73,75,74,565],"class_list":["post-316601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-blog-regular-season","tag-cleveland-browns-at-pittsburgh-steelers-2026-reg-8","tag-featured","tag-non-sponsored","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-sights-and-sounds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}