The Pittsburgh Steelers did pretty much exactly what everyone thought they would last season—just not in the anticipated manner. After getting off to a 10-3 start, they dropped their final four games before going one-and-done in the postseason. Everyone knew the final stretch would be brutal, yet one imagines they could have pulled off at least one win.
Still, the Steelers lost to the two Super Bowl teams, and their two fierce AFC North rivals with high-powered offenses. There is no shame in that in isolation—the problem is they lost all those games consecutively. If they were 8-5 including two of those losses and then beat the Commanders and Browns during the final month, would people feel better? Because ultimately the Steelers still did what people expected.
“I didn’t have very high hopes for them going into last season because of a lot of reasons”, former Steelers reporter Ed Bouchette said on the Chipped Ham and Football podcast. “They didn’t have a No. 2 wide receiver. That was a big deal to me. I thought their defense, even thought it was the highest paid in the league, was overrated”.
“I thought the [Steelers] actually overshot what they should have done”, he added. “I never saw them making the playoffs. The collapse is what everybody’s talking about, but remember, they played probably some of the best teams in the league. I don’t know if it was so much of a collapse. I don’t know that anybody picked them higher than 10-7, and that’s what they got”.
Unquestionably, the Steelers’ final five games were among their most difficult of the season. Additionally, they were also poorly timed with injuries and other issues affecting their performance. They also dealt with short weeks that prevented them from adjusting to fix the problems as they arose.
Still, it’s hard to come up with a satisfying excuse for losing five consecutive games. Even if the Steelers played the Chiefs in Kansas City five times, they should manage to win at least one. They are, after all, an actual NFL franchise with NFL talent and should be able to beat anybody.
But the Steelers didn’t look like they could beat anybody by season’s end. Was that merely due to the quality of opponent, which made them look so hapless? Or did they really fall apart to the point that they looked like chum for the Panthers and Giants?
We will never know how the season would have played out if the end of their schedule had been “easier”. They played the teams that were on their schedule, when they were scheduled to play them. What we do know is that the Steelers lost all of those games, and for most, I think that’s sufficient to call it a collapse.
