It’s amazing what two straight losses to teams that started each game eight games under .500 will do to a fan base and the media covering that team. That’s what’s happened to the Pittsburgh Steelers after losing back-to-back games to the Arizona Cardinals and the New England Patriots. Just two weeks ago, the Steelers looked primed for an unlikely yet almost certain playoff run.
Now, at 7-6 with those two straight inconceivable losses, the Steelers still hold the keys to making the playoffs. It just seems like they forgot how to drive. At this point, NFL.com’s Adam Schein is fully out on the Steelers and predicts them to miss the playoffs in his latest Schein’s Nine.
“When I glance at the current playoff picture, one team sticks out like an exceptionally ugly Christmas sweater: Pittsburgh,” Schein writes. “In Weeks 1-12, the Steelers Somehow got to 7-4 despite being outscored (by 23 points) and outgained (by 676 yards.) Still, they looked postseason-bound — until a disastrous five-day span in which they inexplicably dropped a pair of home games against two 2-10 teams. In a flash, Pittsburgh slipped to 7-6. And there’s no sign the fall will slow down soon.”
It’s truly hard to picture a more excruciating week than the Steelers had that started the Sunday before last. QB Kenny Pickett looked pretty good in the early going against the lowly Arizona Cardinals. He completed 7-of-10 passes for 70 yards and led the team to a field goal on its opening drive. Then he suffered an ankle injury in the second quarter while leading the offense to the Arizona 1-yard line and in came backup QB Mitch Trubisky.
Trubisky may not have been terrible as he completed 11-of-17 passes for 117 yards and a touchdown, but he did lose a fumble. The defense did the Steelers no favors either. It allowed TE Trey McBride to catch eight passes for 89 yards and one touchdown and former Steelers RB James Connor to find the end zone twice on 25 carries for 105 yards. It was a disaster for a team that should have been doing everything in its power to capitalize on a weak spot in its schedule.
That’s when RB Jaylen Warren talked about the Steelers taking the Cardinals lightly. A no-no for a Mike Tomlin-coached team, right? Surely they would respond against another lowly two-win team that couldn’t get on the scoreboard, right?
Instead, the offense couldn’t get anything going through the first quarter and a half and the defense gave a Bailey Zappe-led New England Patriots team 21 points before the second quarter was halfway over. Trubisky did engineer two touchdown drives after the game was 21-3, but he was unable to complete the comeback.
No question, the span of time from Sunday’s kickoff to the final whistle Thursday night was nothing short of disastrous for the Steelers. Now, they are still 7-6 so the book has not closed on them. There is even a path to winning the division against all odds. Schein doesn’t care about any of that, though.
“At this point, there is little reason to believe in Mike Tomlin’s team,” Schein wrote. “Which I think has a realistic chance to lose all four of its remaining games (at Colts, vs. Bengals, at Seahawks, at Ravens,) and finish with its first losing record since Tomlin arrived in 2007.”
The Steelers have celebrated the fact that the team has not had a losing record during Tomlin’s tenure. It’s truly impressive, and that’s not sarcastic in any way. However, the refrains about The Standard this season have grown to a fever pitch. The Standard was supposed to be about contending for titles. That’s what the Pittsburgh Steelers are supposed to be about. Instead, The Standard recently has morphed into having non-losing seasons.
It’s a far cry from what most fans believe the Steelers to be. Yet Schein thinks it’s fully possible that not even that drastically lowered level of standard will be met this season. If not, what is left for Tomlin and the organization to hold up to the Steeler faithful?
