Following a disastrous launch to the 2023-24 NFL season, the Pittsburgh Steelers have finally managed to regain some mojo and are heading into their Sunday confrontation against the Green Bay Packers as a potential playoff contender.
Yeah. They’re packing heat for the first time since preseason exuberance was ground into the Acrisure Stadium turf by the San Francisco 49ers in game one.
Since then, it’s been sputtering and spurting, but even the most cynical would have to agree this team has learned how to work around its obvious limp of having next to no offense.
With a soft schedule on the horizon for the remainder of the year, and with a 5-3 start to the season, you could say they are at least “in the discussion”, and that’s a healthy place to be halfway through the schedule.
Now, what are they packing? At this point, it’s more water pistol than 44 Magnum, but at least it’s loaded. It’s not like Coach Mike Tomlin can go around saying, “Go ahead…make my day”, but at least it provides him with enough ammunition to swat away the gadflies, AKA the Pittsburgh media.
“It’s like reality television, the way you guys follow social media and write stories about it,” Tomlin said.
Yes, Tomlin has his swagger back and many of his players do as well.
Looking at their opponents ahead, it’s not unreasonable for the team to almost expect to be able to reach a 9 or 10-win season, which should suffice to eke them into the playoffs. At this point, it’s more probable than not.
But, even if they do, will they be good enough to make it past a Wildcard date?
Some of those answers are about to emerge in a three-game “tell all” which includes Green Bay at home and then wing-dingers away against the Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals.
Will the Steelers “Go ahead and make our days”? Let’s give it a Spin.
Pebbles
My favorite Steelers teams are when they are undefeated, dominating through the year, and hoisting up Lombardi trophies. I cheer for this vehemently, sometimes against any reasonable evidence of hope. I’m all in on the Steelers winning every play, every game, every season.
But I have to publicly admit I prefer Tomlin when his team is struggling and he needs to rally the troops just to get to .500. He just seems to speak so much more on the level to us as fans. You give him a few wins under his hat…and we just seem to get stupider and stupider.
Like when he was asked this week about the George “Pebbles” Pickens situation (yes Coach, there is a situation) and he brushed off the question and the reporter that was obligated to ask it by saying it was merely a “pebble in my shoe.”
Now, deep bow to Tomlin if he was referring to Muhammad Ali’s famous quote: “It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it’s the pebble in your shoe.”
But that wasn’t what he meant. He was determined to tell us it was merely a flesh wound.
We haven’t forgotten about the pebbles of Le’Veon Bell, Martavis Bryant, and Antonio Brown in the shoes of the team’s recent past.
When one of your players publicly declares “Free Me,” it isn’t the invention of social media that is to blame.
C’mon, coach. Just tell us you’re aware of the issue, and it’s being handled internally.
Unlike Jack Nicholson’s famous Hollywood line, we CAN actually handle the truth.
Unpardonable Sins
Although George Pickens is getting the warm, cozy, public blanket treatment by his coach, there’s no similar act of grace being extended to former starting right tackle Chukwuma Okorafor.
Apparently, if you’re Pickens, you’re able to declare you’re ready to quit on your team.
But, in the case of Chuks, if you criticize the play calling of the coaches, you can expect to have your torch extinguished and be summarily sent off the island.
Most likely, there were a series of actions leading up to this decision of benching Okorafor, but it seems awfully convenient for the rule to be applied strictly in one case when you have your number one draft pick on the bench doing crochet rather than blocking.
Meanwhile, Pickens is arguably the most talented player on offense. If a rookie season JuJu Smith-Schuster was sitting on the bench, I think that pebble would have already been removed.
The Real Peezy
With second-round pick Joey Porter, Jr. rapidly ascending to the ranks of top rookies, and maybe even top cornerbacks in the NFL this year, there is a lingering question for my twisted mind.
You see, I miss Dad so much. Joey Porter is one of my favorite Pittsburgh Steelers and I loved what made him so hated by other teams in the league. He was like a…you know…genuine Steeler.
Much in the tradition of Jack Lambert, Greg Lloyd, and eventually Joey Porter, I like defensive players who aren’t shy about mixing it up with their offensive counterparts and making sure it’s known just who is who.
Ultimately, I’d like to see a Pittsburgh Steelers defense that was not only good at rushing the passer and slowing down the opposition but also was intimidating and feared to play against.
How much did Joey Porter, Jr. learn from dear ol’ Dad?
We don’t expect Joey Porter, Jr. to get in the face of opposing 350-pound linemen, but I wouldn’t mind too much if he was able to wipe the joy off the faces of the league’s best wide receivers.
He can’t do it alone, but legitimate shutdown corners are fundamental keystones of “He Hate Me” levels of snarling, nasty, defenses.
Yes, please. I’d like one of those again.
Flying Dutchmen
Every Steelers Nation fan has either personally experienced or knows of the team’s Glory Days of the ’70s. In fact, so much so that if you’re younger, you probably can’t stand hearing about those museum artifacts of repeated stories those old people (like me) keep sharing.
Yet, there’s another period of glory in Steeler’s history that we kind of take for granted. Although we had a brief dance with Super Bowl participation and AFC dominance in the 90s under Coach Bill Cowher, it didn’t hold a wax-dripping candle to those four Super Bowls back in the day.
What did start to get the engines of blissful gloatery roaring again occurred in the rookie days of Big Ben Roethlisberger. Now…that was a defense!
We did have quite a run with Super Bowl victories in 2005 under Cowher and in 2008 led by our young coaching sensation Tomlin.
Then, when we returned to a new Cowboys Stadium in 2010 to take on the Green Bay Packers for another Big Game, it seemed like we would be continuing to knock down pins of championships like Casey Hampton-sized bowling balls.
Unfortunately, something happened in that stadium. And, like Davy Jones, our beating championship hearts got locked in a chest and it hasn’t been opened since. It was a back-and-forth competition that Super Bowl day, and we took the lead only to have QB Aaron Rodgers regain control with an impressive, clutch drive.
Strangely, we were done. Big Ben threw three consecutive incompletions, some of them bizarre one-yard pass attempts to our deep threat WR Mike Wallace, and we were baked like Grandma’s fruitcake.
We haven’t been the same since. The defense was dismantled of both star defensive coordinators and legendary players, and our domination never returned in a consistent shutdown manner.
Maybe the key to Davy Jones’ chest has remained around the neck of Green Bay for all these years. Hopefully, Rodgers left it behind when he escaped to New York.
Wouldn’t it be great to experience that level of ongoing and uncluttered defensive joy and optimism once again?
The Second Bye Week
Whoever invented Thursday Night Football should be taken out behind the shed. To ask professional football players to compete at the highest levels on Sunday and then to get on a plane and strap it on again just a few days later is the height of greed and cruelty.
We don’t really need football seven days a week. Thursday Night Football was not introduced with player safety in mind, and even for the football purists, it’s a much lower-quality product. You can’t expect the players to perform at their peak with their bodies far from recovered from their prior game.
That being said, for those teams who endure the battering of the short week, they do reap the benefits of essentially an extra bye week on the schedule.
It seems like forever since the Steelers defeated the Tennessee Titans 20-16, and now they enter this home game against the Packers well-rested and hopefully have more time to revise themselves on offense.
Perhaps the best news regarding the Titans is that the purported trade for Derrick Henry to the Baltimore Ravens didn’t go through. Adding King Henry to that team would have all but wrapped up the division and taken that team to a level of physicality we would have no chance of matching.
So onward and expectantly upward the Steelers story continues. This time packing some heat against the Packers, and with the clear intention of having their first game of the season where they truly unload.
