If you were to take a survey of how fans of the Pittsburgh Steelers feel in general about this season without knowing the Steelers’ record, you’d probably be pretty surprised to find out the team is 4-2 and holds its destiny in its own hands in regards to the winning the AFC North. Yet when you dig further into how Pittsburgh got to 4-2, you’d probably understand a lot of the feelings of concern and unrest throughout the fanbase.
One such man who feels better about the Steelers is two-time Super Bowl champion and former Pittsburgh QB Ben Roethlisberger. On Monday’s episode of Footbahlin With Ben Roethlisberger, he talked about his perspective on where the team is after six games.
“I watched the Browns go a couple of weeks ago and win,” Roethlisberger said. “I watch Baltimore go win, and I’m like, I think maybe we have more hope than we think. We’re playing those teams, and it’s like wow, we’ve passed them, and then they go blow out the Lions, they beat the Colts… People are like ‘Oh, we’re no good,’ but we’re 4-2 right now. We’re sitting in the driver’s seat.”
While there are plenty of reasons to be concerned about Pittsburgh’s outlook on the season due to the issues that have consistently cropped up throughout the first six games of the season, Roethlisberger is right. The Steelers are 4-2 and 2-0 in the division. They’ve beaten Cleveland and the Ravens which gives them the inside edge of tiebreakers for the AFC North title. They just went on the road and beat the Los Angeles Rams with the offense performing near-flawlessly in the fourth quarter while the defense locked down QB Matthew Stafford and company for the final 15 minutes of the game.
Two big division wins and a West Coast road win are nothing to overlook. There are questions that certainly need answering to truly give the Steelers a true shot at the postseason. However, they have bounced back from the two terrible losses and proved that they can win games that are close late. That should give fans hope despite all the ugliness and imperfections that have arisen so far this season.
You can watch the episode of Footbahlin in its entirety below.