When you look at the Pittsburgh Steelers’ remaining schedule, you start to get excited at the thought of how they could finish the regular season. Pittsburgh is scheduled to play the 2-10 Arizona Cardinals this weekend and the 2-9 New England Patriots the following Thursday. They’ll face the 6-5 Indianapolis Colts, who are led by QB Gardner Minshew with rookie QB Anthony Richardson out for the season after undergoing surgery on his throwing shoulder and they may be without RB Jonathan Taylor, who is expected to miss a couple of weeks with a thumb injury. Pittsburgh will conclude the season with a rematch against the Cincinnati Bengals, whom they just beat as well as the 6-5 Seattle Seahawks and the 9-3 Baltimore Ravens. It is shaping up to be a favorable schedule where the team could theoretically finish the season with 11 or 12 wins.
Still, the Steelers aren’t looking ahead and marking any games down as projected wins as the regular season comes to a close and the postseason within sight. Veteran DL Cameron Heyward knows better than to take that bait.
“You’re stupid if you look at records at this point,” Heyward said to the media Thursday via video from Steelers Live’s X page. “Every team has players that can take over a game. So for us, one game at a time. The work comes in the practices and then on Sundays it’s about locking in and understanding that you gotta have your best game that day.”
Just like the movie title, any NFL team can upset even the best roster any given Sunday. Pittsburgh knows this all too well, having lot plenty of games in the past to teams it should have beaten. You can point to this season too. The Steelers lost to a Cleveland Browns squad without QB Deshaun Watson and RB Nick Chubb, as the offense failed to show up for the game outside of RB Jaylen Warren. Throw in untimely losses to the Raiders, Commanders, and others over the years, Heyward and the Steelers have played in their fair share of “trap games” this past decade.
The Cardinals are a team that should be easily beatable given the state of their franchise. Same goes for the Patriots, Bengals, and even the Colts if they still have notable players out due to injury. However, it’s dangerous to overlook any team in professional football, no matter their current record. That means every team the Steelers play should get their absolute best as we have seen what happens to this team when they sleepwalk into stadiums thinking that the opposing team is going to roll over for them.
That’s not going to happen, but Pittsburgh wouldn’t want it any other way. This team has lived off gritty, ugly football games that comes down to the fourth quarter where the Steelers out-will their competition. Hopefully they can get a win in the next few weeks by more than one score, but head coach Mike Tomlin has his players in the right mindset as they go down the backstretch of the season, not taking anything for granted and giving teams the respect they deserve.
