The Pittsburgh Steelers may have ended the regular season horribly, but there is a bottom line here. The fact is the Steelers are in the playoffs, and there’s nothing anybody can do about it. Some may feel that they don’t belong, given the way they ended the season. But the reality is they earned their playoff spot weeks ago.
That’s the stance the Steelers are taking, mired in a four-game losing streak. They are only the third team in NFL history to make the postseason after losing their final four regular-season games. One of their predecessors actually won a playoff game, too, so I guess that’s something.
“We earned the opportunity to go in the postseason. It sucks we lost these last four games, but we earned that right”, TE Pat Freiermuth said after the Steelers’ loss to the Bengals. And for that right, they get to play the Ravens in Baltimore on Saturday night.
And that is because they lost—another “right” that they earned. A month ago, the Steelers were competing for the right to earn the top seed in the AFC. Then they were competing for the right to win the division. When even that failed, they competed for the right to earn the top Wild Card spot—and lost again.
“It sucks. It’s painful”, Steelers TE Connor Heyward said. “The only way to dig yourself out of this is go 1-0 next week. Who cares now. It’s the playoffs. We are in it”.
Sure, but the question is for how long. Especially since the NFL expanded the playoffs to seven teams per conference, the Steelers almost always earn their invitation to the dance. The problem is, they keep stumbling over their own feet out the door.
In fact, the Steelers have lost five consecutive playoff games going back to 2016, and usually in spectacular fashion. Since reaching the Super Bowl in 2010, they only have three postseason wins in total, and none in seven years. And counting—which, if they do keep counting, would be a staggering achievement for Mike Tomlin.
Tomlin is only one of six head coaches in NFL history to go seven seasons without a playoff win and keep his job. Before him were Marvin Lewis, Jim Mora, Bart Starr, Don Shula, and Paul Brown. On the whole, that’s pretty good company, but the Steelers are linked with their lowest moments.
Of course, Tomlin already has won a Super Bowl, but I was in college then, and now I’m starting to get gray hair. It’s been a while, in other words. The Steelers have their ticket for the playoffs, but will they manage to do anything with it? Not even “any given Sunday” applies, since the NFL stuck them on Saturday night.
