Hard to believe as it might be for many, the Pittsburgh Steelers are 4-2 through their first six games of the 2023 season, a .667 winning percentage. In fact, if you go back to last season, they are 11-4 in their last 15 games since the 2022 bye week. And it’s pretty much been the same deal all along.
There’s good reason to be baffled. They are one of only two teams to have a winning record with a negative points differential, the other team being the Atlanta Falcons at minus-18. But the Steelers are two games above .500 instead of one, and with a minus-24 points differential. They’ve lost by three possessions twice, but won by one possession four times. We’ve seen this movie before.
“I was surprised they pulled it off”, Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio said recently on 93.7 The Fan with Chris Mueller, referring to their win over the Los Angeles Rams. “I really was surprised, but I’m not surprised, because they can do what we saw against them, against the Ravens, against the Browns. Any given week, Mike Tomlin finds ways to do it”.
And then he dropped that comparison.
“It’s almost like Tebowmania from 12 years ago”, he said. “Keep it close, keep it close, and then he’d pull a rabbit out of his butt and win the game. And the only way to defeat that was to blow out the Broncos, which the Patriots did twice that year”.
You remember that, right? Tim Tebow was unquestionably one of the great college players of his era, but it was a widely held belief that his skill set would not transfer to the NFL level—at least not at the quarterback position. But Josh McDaniels gave him a chance, drafting him in the first round, and then getting fired before the season was over.
Tebow lasted three seasons in the league, two with the Denver Broncos, and they actually made a run in 2011 with him starting 11 games. They completely redesigned their offense around him and basically asked their defense to dominate, which they did, resulting in a 7-4 record and a playoff berth. And they beat the Steelers in the postseason.
The Broncos only allowed 25 or more points four times in Tebow’s 11 starts, and unsurprisingly, they went 1-3 in those games, the one win benefitting from a defensive touchdown. They only scored 20 or more points just three times in that span, winning by scores like 16-13 and 13-10.
The problem is, as they found out, that’s not a sustainable model. They got blown out by the Patriots 45-10, after stunning the Steelers in the AFC Wild-Card round and Tebowmania was dead, never to be resurrected.
But let’s get one thing very clear: Steelers QB Kenny Pickett is far from a Tim Tebow. He has already done more as a passer than Tebow ever did. They can run a pro-style offense with him. They just need him to be better. And in the meantime, they do have to rely on their defense to keep things close before they can wring the life out of their opponent.
