Are the Steelers destined for another one-and-done postseason?
After dropping three straight games, the Steelers are all but assured of playing on the road on Wild Card Weekend. If the Ravens beat the Browns next week or the Steelers lose to the Bengals, Baltimore wins the AFC North.
The most likely scenario is the Steelers playing the Texans in Houston in the Wild Card Round. The Texans are not exactly at the top of their game right now, so that is arguably a winnable game. But nobody watching the Steelers over the past two weeks would be very confident in them winning a winnable game.
Granted, the Steelers just played three playoff teams that will likely be top-three teams in their respective conferences. On their own, or spread out over the season, losing to the Eagles in Philadelphia, Ravens in Baltimore, and Chiefs at home are not damning, defining failures. Losing all three of them in a row and in the manner in which they did, however, feels like it.
It doesn’t help that the Steelers are looking for their first postseason win since 2016. Mike Tomlin is looking at potentially his eighth consecutive season without a playoff win. While that is a topic for a later date (or rather, hopefully, is not), such a “feat” would put him in rare company. But would it put him in hot water?
This was always going to be the toughest stretch of the Steelers’ schedule, something that we knew as soon as the schedule announcement informed us of it. One would hope that they would have at least managed to win one of those three games, though. So many things are going wrong that shouldn’t be going wrong, especially on defense.
The Steelers may benefit from playing a weak division winner in the Texans, and that would give them a chance of winning a playoff game. But they need to be the top Wild Card for that, and that means they probably have to beat the Bengals next week. Cincinnati could do them a favor by beating the Broncos this week, though. The Chargers have the Patriots and Raiders as their final two games. if they win out and the Steelers lose to the Bengals, Los Angeles takes over the top Wild Card seed.
The Steelers’ 2024 season is underway, following another disappointing year ending in a first-round playoff loss. They have had a long offseason since the Buffalo Bills stamped them out of their misery back in January. There are positive signs, but things could jump off the rails any moment.
The biggest question hanging over the team is the quarterback question. Is Russell Wilson earning a lucrative new deal next year, and is Justin Fields still in consideration? How will the team continue to address the depth chart, which is surprisingly still in flux?
The regular season is here, following weeks of camp and preseason games. The Steelers made numerous moves through signings and trade—and release. More than usual, they seemed comfortable creating holes, confident they can fill them. Some they managed to fill, others not so much. Now that we have so many pieces of the puzzle, however, we merely have a new set of questions to ask.
