How the Pittsburgh Steelers are playing football right now certainly isn’t easy on the eyes. Know what is easy on the eyes though? The number in the win column the Steelers boast right now.
Through the first nine games of the season, the Steelers have been outgained in every single matchup. Yet, the Steelers are 6-3 under head coach Mike Tomlin and in the thick of the AFC playoff picture. How they are doing it isn’t all that fun to watch, but it gets the job done.
Yet despite getting the job done consistently, the Steelers remain a hot button topic of debate, especially on all the big network shows like ESPN’s Get Up. After a 23-19 win over the Green Bay in which Pittsburgh racked up 205 rushing yards and two touchdowns yet had to hold on late, the way the Steelers are playing and winning became a big debate.
Get Up host Mike Greenberg stated emphatically that the Steelers are unwatchable and a bad team despite being 6-3. Yet for former NFL head coach Rex Ryan, it doesn’t matter how it looks, only that it’s working and leading to winning football, which is hard to do in the NFL.
“I look at it this way: if you can run the football and play defense, you can win,” Ryan said, according to video via the NFL on ESPN YouTube page. “They’re consistent with it. They keep running the football, right? But ground and pound doesn’t work. Oh really? It wins. It wins and it shows up win in the fourth quarter. That’s why they win.”
Spoken like a true defensive-minded head coach.
He’s not wrong, either.
Granted, Sunday’s performance against the Packers in the run game was the best performance the Steelers have had since Week 10 of last season in which they racked up 217 yards on the ground in a 20-10 win over the New Orleans Saints. But Sunday’s performance built off a 20-16 win over the Tennessee Titans in Week Nine.
It’s how the Steelers want to play. They want to control the clock and the line of scrimmage, minimize mistakes, wear teams down and take them into the deep end of the pool in the fourth quarter and kill them off. To their credit, that’s what they’ve done more often than not in their six wins this season.
It’s not pretty, it’s not really fitting into how the game is played today, but for the Steelers all that matters is that it’s working.
“I would say this: they’re the worst five and three team in the league before this game. And I said after what was gonna happen? They’re gonna win the game. They’re now gonna be the worst six and three team,” Ryan said. “I don’t care what it looks like statistically.”
For many, it shouldn’t matter how it looks, only that it accomplishes the entire goal of the game: to win. The Steelers, to their credit, are doing that. Is it sustainable? We’ll find out.
But it’s hard to knock them for playing to their strengths with a certain style and winning games just because it might not look great to the viewer.
