The Pittsburgh Steelers have not had a losing season since 2003. That’s now 21 seasons, which is tied for the most in NFL history. What’s more, 18 of those seasons belong to HC Mike Tomlin, the most to start a career. Of course, there’s a catch—there’s always a catch.
In addition to never having a losing season, the Steelers also never have a winning playoff record these days. They currently have the NFL’s longest active playoff losing streak. Even the number of teams they have won more recently than is quickly dwindling.
Well, the Steelers’ two threads merged this year with their Wild Card Round loss to the Baltimore Ravens. With a 10-7 regular-season record and an 0-1 playoff run, they now have the longest streak of consecutive non-losing seasons without winning a playoff game.
To translate exactly what that means, the Steelers are the height of mediocrity over the past decade. With eight non-losing seasons in a row with no playoff wins, they are redefining average. No other team in NFL history has been this successful for this long without achieving anything.
Since 2017, the Steelers are 67-47-2, a .586 winning percentage. That’s pretty good, undoubtedly, and among the best records in the NFL during that span. But they are also 0-5 in the playoffs during that same span, which is, of course, pitiful.
Only twice before in the Super Bowl era had a team gone seven seasons without a playoff win while posting a non-losing record. The New Orleans Saints managed it from 1987-1994, and the Washington Redskins from 1973-1979. Now the Steelers from 2017-2024 reign supreme and could well add to their record.
After all, if this Steelers team can go 10-7 with a Wild Card loss, I’m sure next year’s squad could do something very similar. Odds are they aren’t going to solve their quarterback problem in the next few months, and that alone should be sufficient.
One of the glaring problems, of course, is the fact that the AFC North is hard to win. Without hosting a playoff game, the Steelers’ path to a playoff win has been considerably harder. Granted, they are 0-2 during the past seven years at home in the playoffs. There was that miserable Jacksonville Jaguars game in 2017. And then there was that other miserable game in 2020 against the Cleveland Browns. Miserable seems like a good enough word to describe the Steelers’ recent postseason history, doesn’t it?
The question is, which will the Steelers manage first: a losing season or a playoff win? Their streak will end eventually, but out of which side will they come? Like Andy Dufresne in Shawshank Redemption, we’re crawling through a river of shit. But we don’t know how clean we’ll be on the other side.
