In the midst of a rather difficult stretch that saw the Pittsburgh Steelers drop two embarrassing games to the Arizona Cardinals and New England Patriots, severely hurting their playoff chances, team captain Cameron Heyward wants the Steelers to find one thing down the stretch.
Consistency.
Easier said than done in professional sports, but the Steelers need to find that consistency on both sides of the football, and quickly, starting Saturday against the Indianapolis Colts on the road in Week 15.
Appearing on the I Am Athlete podcast with former NFL wide receiver Brandon Marshall, Heyward harped on the consistency, lamenting the fact that the Steelers seem to be all over the place lately.
“I think the first thing is finding ways to win games. But then if we could just simplify that, it’s just having consistent performances,” Heyward said to Marshall, according to audio via the I Am Athlete podcast. “I think sometimes we’re just all over the place. One guy’s here, one guy’s there. We’re looking for consistent performances, offense and defense.”
That consistency can be a hard thing to find. The Steelers have been searching for it all season long, in every facet of the game.
Think about the results they’ve had this season from a wins and losses perspective. The Steelers have never won more than two games in a row all season. Winning streaks aren’t a thing in Pittsburgh right now. Seriously, here’s how the results have gone: Loss, win, win, loss, win, bye week, win, loss, win, win, loss, win, loss, loss.
They’ve also been hit or miss on defense, too, even while taking the football away at a high rate.
They’ve allowed six games of 20+ points and seven games of 19 points or less. Up and down.
Offensively, that’s an entirely different story. They are consistently inconsistent. Consistently having pre-snap penalties, lining up wrong, failing to convert in the red zone, and struggling to make the routine plays routinely. Then there’s the special teams, which can really swing the game at times for the Steelers with big punt blocks and turnovers created, but then penalties leading to short fields and new possessions for the opponent.
If the Steelers can find that consistency they’ve been searching for in all facets of the game down the stretch, Pittsburgh could be a tough out. But the Steelers haven’t found it yet, and coming off of a disastrous two-week stretch, chances are they aren’t going to find it anytime soon, either.
