The Pittsburgh Steelers opened the 2013 season going 2-6 in their first eight games. They surged back in the second half of the year to finish out 8-8, which included a week 17 victory that pushed them to .500 in spite of the fact that they were already mathematically eliminated from the playoffs before kickoff.
This 2022 team is on the verge of duplicating the feat of flipping their season, starting 2-6. They have gone 5-2 thus far since the bye, and could make it 6-2, climbing back to .500 for the first time since week two, with a win on Sunday night against the Baltimore Ravens. And the drive to do that comes from head coach Mike Tomlin, running back Najee Harris told reporters on Friday.
“I think it just comes with the mindset of ‘just keep your head down and grind’, really, is what it is”, he said via Steelers.com. “He really preached and harped on that, saying ‘It’s never too late to turn around’. We really took that into consideration coming after the bye and looking at these next couple games and knowing that we could win most of them”.
Their only losses since the bye week have come unfortunately against divisional foes, first against the Cincinnati Bengals and then against this same Ravens team, against whom they threw three interceptions, including two in scoring range, with backup quarterback Mitch Trubisky after Kenny Pickett was knocked out of the game in the first quarter.
They know that they played well enough in that game overall to be able to beat this Ravens team. They just have to clean things up and finish this time in the way that they failed to a few weeks back. Having Pickett back helps. Having everything on the line doesn’t hurt, either.
“Just him motivating us and telling us not to look at the outside, just worry about what’s inside in the locker room, just telling us to worry about here rather than outside, take it game by game, practice by practice, and good stuff will come”, Harris said.
Even though their chances remain slim, the ultimate goal remains the playoffs. They know that they have to win out to even be alive in that department. The rest they can’t control, but they have done an admirable job of making these January games relevant in a year that looked like they would be showcases for the bottom of the roster.
After all, this was a team that was 1-4 through the first five weeks, and then 2-6 three weeks later. They were even 3-7, but they are winners of four of their last five and have finally shown that they can string together victories.
They’re going to have to run their streak up to four games to have a chance, but under Tomlin’s guidance, they have the internal belief that they can make it happen.
