Throughout much of the first 13 weeks of the season, the Pittsburgh Steelers were considered by many to be one of the best teams in the AFC and a legitimate contender to compete for a Super Bowl. The Steelers were praised up and down for how they were performing.
Even head coach Mike Tomlin was rightfully getting his flowers, too, for the job he was doing, navigating a QB change perfectly and getting the best out of both Justin Fields and Russell Wilson.
The last three weeks, though, have been a disaster for the Steelers as Pittsburgh has gotten blown out by the Philadelphia Eagles, Baltimore Ravens and Kansas City Chiefs. Things are trending in the wrong direction for the Black and Gold, and in a hurry.
In the process, the three losses and the performances from the Steelers in those games have shown some analysts, like The Athletic’s Robert Mays, that the Steelers have a wide gap between themselves and the best teams in the AFC, just like many expected coming into the season.
“It feels like the Steelers have kind of taken a step back kind of to the sort of team we’ve expected them to be over the last few years, where there are elements of who they are that you can get excited about, but the deficiencies are so clear and they present such a gap between them and the best teams in the AFC that, again, I kind of have arrived in a place with Pittsburgh, even if the offense has looked better for a big portion of this year, that reminds me of how I felt about them as we’ve gotten toward the playoffs in the last couple seasons,” Mays said Thursday on The Athletic Football Show’s podcast, according to video via The Athletic on YouTube.
It’s fair to say the Steelers have taken a step back considering they’ve been outscored 90-40 in the last three games against three legitimate Super Bowl contenders. The games were relatively close in the first half, but in the second half of each game the Steelers were overmatched and watched the opponents pull away.
It wasn’t pretty.
Those three losses also showed that the Steelers have a lot of work to do and just don’t have the offensive talent to match firepower. In two of those games, the Steelers were without WR George Pickens, which made things a bit difficult in the passing game.
You’re not really going to scare secondaries with the likes of Van Jefferson, Scotty Miller and Mike Williams, though Calvin Austin III has really emerged this season as a true playmaker and an intriguing piece moving forward. But without Pickens, the Steelers struggled, and even when they got him back for Christmas Day against the Chiefs, the passing game struggled again.
Russell Wilson has thrown a killer interception in back-to-back weeks and has turned the ball over in the red zone twice, really hindering the Steelers’ offense. On defense, the Steelers have been unable to stop the run and have had communication issues in the secondary where they are banged up, exposing their lack of depth, which was a concern entering the season.
“There was a stretch in the middle of the season where I think you probably could have talked yourself into them potentially creeping toward that level in a way that they haven’t over the last few years, even if they’ve been a Wild Card team. But I think that now that’s just not the case anymore,” Mays added.
The Steelers shouldn’t be considered among the best in the AFC, up there with the Chiefs, Buffalo Bills and Ravens. That doesn’t mean they’re a bad team, but there’s just a gap between the Steelers and the best of the best in the conference. The Steelers might win a playoff game, but they likely aren’t going to be competing for a Super Bowl this season unless they have some sort of drastic turnaround and get back to the level they were playing at earlier in the season.
And on both sides of the football, too.
