The AFC has become a Wild West of a conference with 11 teams boasting a winning record and six of them tied with a record of 7-6. One of those teams is the Pittsburgh Steelers, fresh off their disappointing loss to the New England Patriots last Thursday. The loss briefly knocked the Steelers out of the AFC playoffs field, but the results of Sunday’s slate of games bumped them back into field, Pittsburgh currently holding the sixth seed in the playoff standings.
DL Cameron Heyward addressed Pittsburgh’s standing in the playoff race, comparing the state of the AFC to a Netflix show where the goal is to survive at all costs.
“Well, first of all, I wanna just say the AFC playoff race is kind of crazy now,” Heyward said on Not Just Football with Cam Heyward, which aired on NFL on ESPN’s YouTube channel. “We are in the Squid Games of the AFC. And so, for the people who understand what Squid Games is, it’s do or die. But I look at what’s left, you look at the teams, we got some work to do. We play two of the teams in the middle of that mess.”
When you look at the AFC, it has become a state of do or die for the Steelers, who have minimal room for error over the last four weeks of the season. They play two teams currently fighting for positioning in the playoffs in the Indianapolis Colts on Saturday and the Cincinnati Bengals the following week. After that, Pittsburgh faces the Seattle Seahawks, who are also fighting to for a Wild Card berth in the NFC as well as the Baltimore Ravens, who currently sit atop of the AFC North, to close out the season.
Despite coming off two bad losses, Heyward recognizes that Pittsburgh still has a shot of making the postseason, having to get back on track and soon with its destiny in its own hands.
“I think coming off two disappointing losses, you just say, ‘Man, we’re in the thick of it.'” Heyward said. “Can’t squander these opportunities, but we got work to do, plan on attacking it throughout the week and preparing for this next game. You can’t really get too high, too low about it. There’s a lot, still a lot of football, about a month’s worth of football left, so let’s have our best showing this last month.”
If Pittsburgh is serious about making a run to the postseason in 2023, it starts with putting together a strong performance in Indianapolis on Saturday afternoon. The Colts will present a tough test, having an opportunistic defense as well as an offense that has stayed afloat with QB Gardner Minshew at the helm. Pittsburgh’s defense will need to hunker down and play better ball than it has the last two weeks while hopefully seeing the Steelers’ offense establish some semblance of ball movement that leads to points.
