For the second week in a row, the Pittsburgh Steelers are coming off a tough loss, this time waiting until fourth and goal to lose. With the second straight loss, the Steelers are also in a free fall in power rankings across the NFL landscape.
After climbing inside the top 10 in recent weeks, the Steelers are on the outside and looking in — and falling fast.
In power rankings from The Athletic’s Josh Kendall, ESPN, NFL.com’s Eric Edholm and CBS Sports’ Pete Prisco, the Steelers fell multiple spots after dropping to 3-2 on the season with their 20-17 loss to the Cowboys.
In The Athletic’s power rankings from Kendall, the Steelers fell to No. 15 after sitting at No. 10 last week.
The Steelers were passed by the likes of the Cowboys, Atlanta Falcons, Los Angeles Chargers and San Francisco 49ers in The Athletic’s power rankings.
That fall comes after another frustrating performance from the offense, which generated just 226 yards. Kendall focused on a fantasy football perspective when discussing the Steelers in the power rankings, but even real-life football has been an issue for them.
Their run game was nearly non-existent against the Cowboys, and the passing game was rough as Fields missed some throws from an accuracy standpoint, didn’t see the field well, and didn’t get much help as there were at least four key drops that hindered the Steelers offensively.
In ESPN’s power rankings, the Steelers fell from No. 12 to No. 15, dropping three spots total.
Pittsburgh was passed by the likes of the Falcons and Philadelphia Eagles in ESPN’s power rankings.
CBS Sports’ Pete Prisco dropped the Steelers six spots in his power rankings for CBSSports.com, putting the Steelers at No. 15 this week after being No. 9 last week.
“The offense didn’t do enough against an undermanned Dallas defense. They’ve lost two straight to cool that fast start. Is a quarterback change coming?” Prisco writes of the Steelers in his power rankings.
The offense didn’t do much of anything, generating just 226 yards while holding the ball for 27:31 in the game. The Steelers scored just 17 points, and though they didn’t turn the football over, they didn’t do enough to win the game, failing to take advantage of the three turnovers and the blocked field goal that the defense generated.
That’s a real concern moving forward as the Steelers have major questions at receiver, are significantly banged up at running back and might be facing a quarterback change with Russell Wilson healthy now.
Surprisingly, the only one who didn’t drop the Steelers in the power rankings was Edholm for NFL.com. After the frustrating last-second loss to the Cowboys, Edholm kept the Steelers right at No. 10.
“We’ve received endless Russell Wilson calf updates and watched Justin Fields bump his head on the ceiling of what he can do as a starting quarterback a few times, so the QB question continues to hover over the whole operation after Sunday night’s gutting home loss to the Cowboys. Will Pittsburgh make a change?” Edholm writes regarding the Steelers in his power rankings. “I don’t know, but I can’t wait to see how Mike Tomlin handles the matter. Allowing Dallas’ fourth-and-goal conversion was a tough way to lose, but the Steelers can look back at their missed opportunities as the real culprit. They forced three Cowboys stops in the red zone but couldn’t convert a single one of those into points on the other end.
“Fields warmed up on two key second-half TD drives but was largely too ineffective against an injury-riddled Dallas defense. A toothless run game didn’t help much, either. The Steelers are still in decent shape overall, but two straight got-away-from-them losses also sting quite a bit.”
The losses sting quite a bit, especially the one to the Cowboys since they forced three turnovers and blocked a field goal. It was the exact type of game the Steelers are built for, that being a low-scoring, ugly affair in which the defense forces turnovers, the offense does just enough, and the Steelers eke out an ugly win.
But that wasn’t the case, and it cost them as the defense couldn’t get the necessary stops down the stretch.
It also didn’t help that the offense couldn’t do much of anything off the turnovers and really struggled to move the football against a depleted, poor defense.
So, maybe a change occurs. Or maybe it doesn’t.
But right now, things aren’t looking all that good for the Steelers after two frustrating losses to teams they appeared to be better than on paper.
