The Pittsburgh Steelers had a chance on Christmas Day to stay atop the AFC North. No question it was a tall task to beat the two-time Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs. But the Steelers fell, 29-10, giving Steelers fans coal in their stockings.
Now the Steelers are a game behind the Baltimore Ravens in the AFC North standings. But the even bigger picture is that the Steelers are struggling on both sides of the ball. And there’s only one game left in the regular season.
“Though there’s a playoff ticket already punched, Pittsburgh has now lost three in a row,” Grant Gordon wrote for NFL.com’s takeaways from the Christmas Day slate of games. “Wide receiver George Pickens returned after missing the past three games with a hamstring injury and had spots during which he gave the offense some life, but Russell Wilson and Co. scored a season-low 10 points and have failed to eclipse 17 points in each of their last three, while the defense has allowed an average of 30 points in that span. Back when the club was 10-3, optimism was at a high, clinching the AFC North was on the to-do list and going on to win in the playoffs for the first time since 2016 was the mission. At this point, [Mike] Tomlin’s bunch needs to turn things around in all facets for any hopes of accomplishing such an undertaking.”
Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin wants his team to be a defensive juggernaut. But as Gordon points out, the Steelers have given up an average of 30 points in their last three games. And they gave up 38 points only two weeks before this three-game losing streak to the Cincinnati Bengals. For a team built to be a defensive force, the defense is struggling mightily.
A big part of that has been defensive miscommunication. LB Patrick Queen has been frustrated, saying that the team “came out flat” again after the loss to the Chiefs. The defense is simply letting opponents to run free at key moments in the game. For a unit that’s supposed to be keeping the team in games, it’s failing to do that.
However, the Steelers haven’t scored over 20 points in any of their last three games, either. They only managed 10 points against the Chiefs without DT Chris Jones in the lineup. QB Russell Wilson did not throw a touchdown for only the second time this season. And he threw an interception for the second game in a row.
Gordon is right. Right now, the Steelers aren’t doing anything well on either side of the ball. They have a Week 18 matchup against the Bengals, the team that scored the most points against them this season, looming. And then it’s playoff time. Teams are supposed to be heating up heading into the playoffs. But the Steelers are cooling off like, well Pittsburgh in wintertime.
At one point, the Steelers and their fans expected to win the AFC North. They were 10-3 only three weeks ago. And getting a home playoff game could go a long way to snapping their near-decade streak of playoff futility. But now hopes of that playoff game at Acrisure Stadium are all but gone.
So if the Steelers and Mike Tomlin want to do more than lose in the first round, they have to fix things quickly. But if the last few weeks are any indication, that’s a really tall task at this point of the season.
