Let me be absolutely clear — I’ve given my life to this sport. I’ve coached it, studied it, bled for it, and defended it even when the league itself made that defense hard to justify. And what unfolded on that cold December night in Pittsburgh was not professional football.

It was authority without accountability — chaos approved, recklessness rewarded, and a system failing in plain sight while still branding itself as competition.

I’ve been in this league long enough to recognize a fair loss from a mile away. You lose, you shake hands, you review the tape, you learn, and you move on.

The 29–24 defeat of the Detroit Lions to the Pittsburgh Steelers on December 21, 2025, was not one of those nights.

The scoreboard told one story, but the film told another entirely — one of repeated boundary violations, selective officiating, and a disturbing tolerance for behavior that no longer belongs on an NFL field.

When a player goes after the football, you see it in an instant: eyes locked on the target, hands reaching for leather, body under control. That is the essence of this game — disciplined violence, controlled aggression, intent channeled through technique.

But when a player abandons pursuit of the ball and instead targets another man’s body after the play is dead, when the whistle has sounded and the moment has passed, that ceases to be football. That is not instinct. That is not emotion spilling over.

That is a conscious, calculated decision made with full awareness and zero regard for consequence.

The hit in question — and everyone who watched knows precisely which one I mean — was not incidental. It was not a late arrival that could be explained away by momentum or misjudgment. It was intentional.

There is no gray area here, no room for reasonable debate among people who understand the game. And what followed was even more telling: the taunting, the chest-pounding, the smirks directed at the fallen player, the post-whistle celebrations that turned a violent act into performance art.

That was not competitive fire. That was not the heat of rivalry. That was arrogance — loud, unrestrained, and, most disturbingly, effectively validated by the officials’ silence.

If the league is prepared to label that sequence of events as “playing tough,” then the standard hasn’t merely slipped; it has been deliberately discarded.

We have spent years listening to the same polished statements from the commissioner’s office: player safety is paramount, the integrity of the game must be preserved, accountability will be enforced.

Yet week after week, we watch moments like this one brushed aside with the same tired refrain: “It’s just football.” No. Football ends the instant safety becomes optional, when respect is sacrificed for crowd noise, television ratings, and the convenience of selective enforcement.

To the officials on that field, this was not a missed call. This was a failure of obligation. A failure to protect the players they are paid and entrusted to safeguard. A failure to uphold the very principles the league spends millions advertising during every broadcast.

When a player is driven into the turf after the play is over, helmet-to-helmet, with no football anywhere near the action, and the flags stay in pockets, the message is unmistakable: some infractions matter, and some do not.

The line between legal physicality and blatant misconduct has not been blurred — it has been erased.

Yes, Detroit lost the game. Yes, we did not execute well enough in critical moments. Our offense stalled in the red zone, our defense gave up explosive plays, and we failed to capitalize on turnovers. Those are football mistakes, and they are mine to own as head coach.

But my players did not lose their composure. They did not lose their discipline. They did not lose their integrity. They played hard, they played physical, and above all, they played clean. They refused to descend to the level that was being tacitly permitted on the opposite sideline.

For that alone, I stand with them without reservation or apology.

This is not about deflecting blame for a loss. This is not frustration talking.

This is a man who has spent four decades in the game — as a player, as an assistant, now as a head coach — watching something he loves slowly lose the soul that once made it worth defending.

The NFL has become a billion-dollar entertainment product, and somewhere along the way, the sport itself has become secondary.

The players, the ones who sacrifice their bodies, their long-term health, and often their futures, are the only ones still paying the real price when the rules are enforced unevenly or not at all.

If this is the direction we are heading — if this is what is now acceptable on a nationally televised stage — then tonight was not merely about a five-point defeat. Something far more valuable was damaged.

A piece of what once made football disciplined, credible, and honorable was stripped away in front of millions. The game can survive bad calls, poor execution, and even heartbreak. What it cannot survive is the steady erosion of trust in the people paid to protect it.

I am not calling for suspensions or fines in this moment — though many would argue they are warranted. I am calling for something simpler and more fundamental: consistency. Draw a firm, unmistakable line between competition and misconduct.

Enforce it the same way every Sunday, regardless of market size, fan base, or primetime spotlight. Protect the players who still believe in the game the way I do.

Because if we continue down this path, where the loudest and most reckless are rewarded while the disciplined are punished by inaction, then we are not preserving football — we are dismantling it, piece by piece.

My players left everything on that field. They walked off with their heads high, knowing they had honored the sport even when others chose not to. That is the standard we will continue to hold ourselves to, no matter how many times the league allows that standard to be ignored.

Because at the end of the day, I still love this game — deeply, fiercely, and without qualification. And because I love it, I refuse to stand quietly while it loses what little conscience it has left.

We will prepare for next week the same way we always do: with focus, with discipline, and with respect for what football is supposed to be. But we will not pretend that what happened in Pittsburgh was acceptable. We will not pretend it did not matter.

And we will not stop speaking up until the league remembers that the players are not just assets — they are human beings who deserve better than the version of “tough football” we witnessed on December 21, 2025.

The score was 29–24. The truth was far heavier than that.