Two of the worst offenses in football square off tonight. One, at least we can hope, is much worse than the other. At least for the Pittsburgh Steelers, they have the potential of a running game. As for success through the air, well, that’s been a tougher ask, and now they are down to their backup quarterback.
So, too, are the visiting New England Patriots, but that was by choice. Mac Jones’ thoroughly underwhelming play finally came to a head, and they are now expected to start Bailey Zappe for the second game in a row—in spite of the fact that he led the offense to zero points last Sunday.
“When you look at this time going down the stretch, I don’t know who the hell wants to watch Thursday Night Football with them and New England”, former Steelers safety-turned-analyst Ryan Clark said earlier this week in an episode of Inside the NFL on ESPN.
And he’s right. Both of these offenses have been very tough to watch for the most part in most of the games they have played this year. It’s some of the worst football you’re going to find in the NFL today. We’re talking about one team that fired its offensive coordinator in immense contradiction to their standard operating procedure and another that had to bench its starting quarterback, who, by the way, is also down many of its top skills players.
The chances of this being one of the ugliest games of the year feel pretty high. One can only hope that the Steelers’ ground game will salvage it from a viewership perspective. Perhaps it’s time for RB Jaylen Warren, with Najee Harris nursing a bit of a knee injury, to be featured heavily and record his third 100-yard rushing game.
For the second time in three weeks, the Steelers managed just 10 points of offense, losing first to a rookie backup fifth-round quarterback and then to a two-win team. It’s only more surprising in hindsight that they were actually able to beat Jake Browning’s Bengals in between, Browning making his first NFL start for the injured Joe Burrow.
Clark, of course, hasn’t been afraid to speak his mind when it comes to the reputation of his former team. Even this comment above came only after some blunt words about what it means to be a Steeler right now versus the organization’s history.
“The Pittsburgh Steelers have to start to accept that they’re no longer the organization that can live off the fact that there’s six Lombardi Trophies in the staircase”, he said. “That’s an issue for the fans. That’s an issue for the organization. But the guys on that team need to understand, you didn’t win any of those rings. It takes the work. It takes the effort. And it takes the execution”.
With Ben Roethlisberger’s retirement in 2022, there is nobody remaining in the NFL who has won a Super Bowl with the team. There is nobody even on the 2010 roster that reached the Super Bowl remaining in the league.
Even those who were rookies like Antonio Brown, Emmanuel Sanders, and Maurkice Pouncey, are already retired. Outside of head coach Mike Tomlin, not a single member of that coaching staff remains. General manager Kevin Colbert is gone. Omar Khan is still here. You would have to look at names like Phil Kreidler in the front office and Garrett Giemont and Marcel Pastoor on the strength and conditioning staff to find any other ties not named Rooney to the Steelers’ last Super Bowl team. Throw in senior director of communications Burt Lauten, and Dr. James Bradley too. But players? No. With only a small handful of exceptions, they’re all long gone. The only player in the league who has ever been in a Steelers locker room celebrating a Super Bowl win is…Joey Porter Jr. And he was five years old at the time, now a rookie in the NFL.
