At 5-3, the Pittsburgh Steelers have a Wild-Card berth in hand and remain in striking distance of the AFC North crown with the Baltimore Ravens sitting at 7-2 (Pittsburgh has the head-to-head over Baltimore).
The Steelers find themselves in position to make the playoffs despite a minus-30 point differential and getting outgained in every single game this season, a rare feat that has hardly ever been accomplished by a playoff-caliber team. Chris Simms and Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk spoke about the Steelers’ their playoff chances on a recent episode of their show with Simms stating that Pittsburgh may make it into the dance but isn’t going to go anywhere based on the caliber of its offense.
“Are they going to be able to make a playoff run with the current status of their offense, like you’re talking about?” Simms said on PFT which aired on NFL on NBC’s YouTube channel. “Absolutely not. They’re not. It’s going to be too tough. They might get there, but to win a game or multiple games? I gotta see that to believe it in the playoffs.”
Simms appears confident that Pittsburgh’s offense doesn’t have the juice to fuel a playoff run against some of the heavyweight teams in the AFC. To the Steelers’ credit, they did beat the 7-2 Ravens at home in Week Five, but the defense played a huge role in keeping the score down and forcing a key turnover to get the offense the ball to score the go-ahead touchdown near the end of the game. Baltimore also helped Pittsburgh out as the Ravens’ receivers dropped numerous passes with several being guaranteed touchdowns only to fall incomplete.
The Steelers showed some life offensively last Thursday against the Tennessee Titans, scoring a touchdown on their first drive of the game. However, the offense stalled after that, failing to get into the end zone again until the end of the fourth quarter for the go-ahead score. Pittsburgh can keep relying on its defense to try and keep games close and hope its offense can capitalize in crunch time, but opposing offenses aren’t going to mess around come playoff time. We saw this occur in Pittsburgh’s last playoff game against the Kansas City Chiefs. Pittsburgh got a splash play on a fumble return touchdown by OLB T.J. Watt, taking a 7-0 lead in the second quarter. However, Kansas City went on to score six-consecutive touchdowns, pouring it on the Steelers in what would be a 42-21 loss.
Pittsburgh’s recipe for success with the current state of its offense has minimal room for error. If the opposing offense gets going, there isn’t much of a chance that the Steelers can keep up unless their offense drastically improves. Simms has a fair point, and the Steelers have nine more games left on their schedule to get their offense going to prove that they can keep up in a playoff game should it come down to a shootout.
You can watch the full episode here:
