T.J. Watt Says 'Losing Sucks' and Steelers Weren't 'Ready' for Ravens in NFL Playoffs

The Pittsburgh Steelers' end-of-season collapse finished with a 28-14 loss to the rival Baltimore Ravens in the AFC Wild Card Round on Saturday, and pass-rusher T.J. Watt was not happy in the aftermath.

"Losing sucks," he told reporters. "Losing five in a row to finish the season out sucks. Felt like we had a good week of prep. Felt like we were ready for this one. We weren't. We weren't able to stop the run. Haven't been able to stop the run. We weren't able to get it fixed. So it's been rough last month of football."

Pittsburgh started the season with a 10-3 record and looked the part of a Super Bowl contender with a strong defense and opportunistic offense leading the way. Then it finished the regular season with four consecutive losses prior to Saturday's postseason defeat.

It didn't score more than 17 points in any of those final five losses, but the defense also struggled to stop Derrick Henry (186 rushing yards and two touchdowns) and Lamar Jackson (175 passing yards, 81 rushing yards and two touchdowns) as Baltimore jumped out to a 21-0 lead and never looked back.

Even Watt finished with zero tackles and zero sacks in his final 127 snaps of the campaign.

"It's too fresh," he said. "I don't know. I don't have the answers. Clearly, if I had the answers, I would've done something differently this week. I felt like we had a good week, good week of prep. Felt like we had a relatively healthy set of guys, especially defensively, put the pads on. I felt like we had a physical practice week and didn't correlate.

"If I had the answer, we wouldn't be here right now. I'm going to have to take a look in the mirror and have some conversations, but I don't have the answers."

Unfortunately for the Steelers, this season was more of the same.

While head coach Mike Tomlin set the NFL record with an 18th straight non-losing season, the team also hasn't won a playoff game since the 2016 campaign. Getting into the playoffs and losing in the Wild Card Round has become the norm and happened in four of the last five years.

Whether that will lead to significant offseason changes to the coaching staff or roster remains to be seen, but the Ravens were clearly the better team on both sides of the ball Saturday and wasted no time seizing full control.

Two third-quarter touchdown passes from Russell Wilson made the final score more respectable, but Watt and the Steelers were left searching for answers.