The Pittsburgh Steelers apparently have a very difficult schedule in the second half of the season. You may have heard about it, in fact, as one or two people may have mentioned it. Apparently, they play all six of their division games late in the year—and they play in the toughest division. Words like “gauntlet” have been used to describe the difficulty of this home stretch.
But there is still a lot of football to play before the Steelers ever get there. “Seeing those games the way they are, it gives us motivation”, TE Pat Freiermuth said via the team’s website. “But we do have to start playing our best football Week 1”.
As it turns out, the Steelers have obligations to play several other teams in September, October, and November. For example, they open the season against the Atlanta Falcons and the Denver Broncos on the road. Their home opener is against the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 3. They might want to think about doing their best to win those games before worrying about Baltimore in mid-November.
Indeed, the late divisional games only make the early games even more important. You better stack as many wins as you can at the start of the season unless you want to need to dominate a trio of potential Super Bowl contenders twice.
“In the beginning of the season, we get all of the non-division games out of the way, and we can control what we can with that”, Freiermuth said of the Steelers’ schedule. “Then later in the year, we can try and control things within our division when those are some of the most important games”.
In other words, take it one game at a time. The Broncos don’t matter to the Steelers until they play the Falcons. The Chargers don’t matter until they play the Broncos. And the Bengals aren’t going to matter for a long time, damn near until December.
For the Steelers and every other team, and for everyone in every walk of life, everything matters when it matters. And the best way to make sure that those late divisional games matter is to make yourself competitive by October.
Some are predicting the Steelers’ downfall this year, an annual tradition that goes unfulfilled. This is going to be Mike Tomlin’s first losing season in his 18th year, supposedly. The schedule is simply too hard. Perhaps that will prove to be the case. But each and every individual game is winnable. Worry about what is in front of you only when it is in front of you.
The next game on the Steelers’ schedule is on September 8 against the Falcons in Atlanta. That is what they need to worry about. As Freiermuth said, that is when they need to start to play their best football. Not after Thanksgiving, but when the kids are going back to school.
