Have you heard? The Pittsburgh Steelers have never had a losing season under head coach Mike Tomlin. In fact, they haven’t had one in two decades, the last time being in 2003. They ended up drafting QB Ben Roethlisberger after that 6-10 season.
Pittsburgh didn’t have to finish with a losing record to land QB Kenny Pickett 20th overall in 2022. But nobody is predicting him to lead the Steelers to a Super Bowl title in his second season, either. Indeed, expectations remain limited to only moderate success at this stage of the team’s development.
Peter King, for example, really went out on a limb yesterday in predicting that the Steelers would finish the 2023 season with a 9-8 record. He projects that to be good enough to earn the seventh seed in the AFC (via tiebreakers with the Miami Dolphins and the Los Angeles Chargers, because making guesses has to be complicated apparently).
And he has them losing in the AFC Wild Card Round to the Kansas City Chiefs. Which, if they have to play the Chiefs in the first round sounds about right if we’re being honest. But if there is yet another one-and-done postseason run ahead for the Steelers, that would be the fourth in a row, and the fifth playoff loss consecutively overall, going back to 2017 (2016 or the overall loss streak).
The Steelers are already on their longest postseason losing streak in NFL history, having never lost four consecutive before now. Their most recent loss, during the 2021 postseason, saw them blown out 42-19 by the same Chiefs whom King expects to defeat them yet again this year.
They are also on their longest playoff drought without a win in the Super Bowl era. Even when the roster is not at its strongest, a failure to succeed in the playoffs is always viewed as a disappointment. There is an understanding outside the building that this is a team on the come-up, but internally, the feeling is that they already need to be there.
They expect to win playoff games now, during the 2023 season. They expect to compete with the Cincinnati Bengals and the Baltimore Ravens and the Cleveland Browns for the AFC North title. They expect to be able to hang with the Chiefs and the Los Angeles Chargers and the New York Jets and the Buffalo Bills and anybody else who might stand in their way.
But they still have a lot to prove, apparently, and that’s understandable. They’ve shown about all they can show this offseason without playing any meaningful games. What will be interesting to follow is how the postseason expectations for the team evolve over the course of the year.
After all, did anybody predict the San Francisco 49ers would still be a Super Bowl contender when Brock Purdy was first put into the starting lineup? Yet far more pundits feel better about their chances than they do about the Steelers’.
