The Pittsburgh Steelers flamed out on Saturday night against the Baltimore Ravens in the Wild Card round, 28-14. The Steelers were down 21-0 at halftime and, despite engineering two touchdown drives in the third quarter, they were never in the game. RB Derrick Henry and QB Lamar Jackson absolutely steamrolled the Steelers defense. That led to former NFL OL Ross Tucker calling out the defensive performance.

Most people expected the Ravens to beat the Steelers. But the Steelers’ lack of effort and physicality throughout most of the game surprised people. Former NFL DE Chris Canty saw it, and he thinks it begins at the top.

“I’m texting our buddy Willie Colon on Saturday night,” Canty said Monday on ESPN’s Unsportsmanlike on ESPN Radio. “He’s a former Pittsburgh Steeler, won a Super Bowl with them. And I said at 9:43, ‘I know quit when I see it. Looks like the boys in Black and Yellow are tapping out.’ That’s what I said. It just felt like the Pittsburgh Steelers, when Cam Heyward is tapping out of the game because he’s dealing with something. Now he was evaluated for a head injury, but when you start seeing stuff like that, T.J. Watt dealing with an arm or an elbow. For those guys that got a bank full of pride in a postseason game where it’s win or go home, for that type of stuff to be happening, I gotta question whether or not this team under Mike Tomlin is capable of going any further.

“And based on what we saw in the first half, based on what we saw essentially through the entirety of the game, save two drives in the third quarter, yeah, it’s time. It’s time for Mike Tomlin to go somewhere else. It’s time for the Pittsburgh Steelers to turn to someone else in order to lead their franchise.”

This should have been an absolute slugfest of a game. It’s the Steelers and the Ravens. These two teams hate each other. And it’s a playoff game. Everyone on both sidelines should have been fired up for this game. And by all accounts, everyone on the Ravens’ sideline was. But it certainly seemed like the Steelers’ sideline wasn’t.

The Ravens bullied the Steelers. They ran for 299 yards, the most yards given up by the Steelers in their playoff history. Henry himself was responsible for 186 of those yards, the most rushing yards by a player against the Steelers in franchise playoff history.

Now, I don’t agree with Canty calling out Heyward and Watt for what appeared to be legitimate injuries. However, it’s completely fair for Canty to question the Steelers overall. The Ravens had one touchdown drive where every play ended up being a run, all 13 of them. How do the Steelers, a proud franchise built on defense, allow themselves to get completely outclassed like that by their biggest rival?

Canty thinks the Steelers flat-out quit on Saturday. Not every single player did, certainly, but he thinks collectively they did. And that falls on the shoulders of the head coach.

Mike Tomlin has a reputation as a player’s coach and a motivator, but the Steelers did not look very motivated Saturday. How does a proud defense give up that many rushing yards in a do-or-die game like that?

And how does the franchise recover from that? Canty says Tomlin and the Steelers need to split. That seems unlikely as Gerry Dulac reported Tomlin’s job is safe. But something needs to change. Otherwise, the Steelers’ streak of playoff futility since 2016 will continue.