The Pittsburgh Steelers have now lost five consecutive postseason games, which is tied for the second-longest active losing streak in the NFL. It is the longest streak in franchise history by two. But what is most remarkable is the way they’ve gone about it, especially because it’s nowhere close to the longest postseason losing streak of all time.
No, the Steelers became the first team ever in NFL history to allow 28 or more points in five consecutive postseason games. They are also the first team to allow 31 or more points in five consecutive postseason games as well, of course.
Two other teams had allowed 28 or more points in four consecutive games, those being the Jacksonville Jaguars from 1999 to 2007 and the Baltimore Colts from 1975 to 1987. Jacksonville did win one of those four games. The Colts did not.
As you know, the Steelers have lost all five of the games in which they have allowed 28-plus points during their current streak. They are now 8-10 under head coach Mike Tomlin and were obviously 8-5 with two Super Bowl appearances and one Super Bowl victory prior to that.
The Steelers have allowed 30 or more points in 16 postseason games all-time out of 64 played. Of those 16, seven have come under Tomlin, which is no surprise given that scoring is higher in this era of the game. But it’s remarkable that five of those seven have come in just his last five of 18 total postseason games.
His teams hold the marks for the two worst postseason point totals in franchise history, including 48 allowed to the Cleveland Browns in 2020 and 45 (tied for the second-worst with a 1984 loss to the Miami Dolphins) in the 2017 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars.
They also allowed 42 points to the Kansas City Chiefs in 2021, accounting for three of the five games in franchise history in which the Steelers have allowed 40 or more points in the postseason. The five-game losing streak began with a 36-17 loss to the New England Patriots in 2016. They held their previous four opponents to under 25 points, most of them under 20.
Pittsburgh fought hard to even make it into the postseason, scratching and clawing to win out the final three games after dropping three amid quarterback injury and uncertainty. The Steelers rallied around QB Mason Rudolph, who helped them make it there in the first place.
Unfortunately, it was not enough, dropping a 31-17 game to the Buffalo Bills Monday in the wild-card round of the playoffs. It was an unprecedented collapse in that it’s the fifth time in a row that it’s happened going back to 2016. They trailed 21-0, eventually got to within a touchdown at 24-17, but finally gave up the goose, handed yet another multi-score postseason defeat. For a team that only twice scored at least 30 points itself all season, that was always going to be a tall task.
