Behind the Steel Curtain
So…let’s talk about Sunday.
With their frustrating loss to the Chicago Bears, the Steelers not only lost the AFC North lead, but also tumbled out of playoff position altogether. If the season ended today, Mike Tomlin and crew would be left crooning whatever the NFL postseason’s equivalent is to “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”
With six games left on the schedule, the Steelers are technically still in the thick of things, at least mathematically speaking. However, with games against the Bills, Lions and a double dose of Ravens making up the majority of the remaining schedule, the margin for error has never been thinner.
The Athletic’s playoff prediction model gives Pittsburgh just a 20% chance of making the playoffs. ESPN’s model is a little kinder, but still only gives the Black and Gold a 36% of getting in.
Let’s be honest. Heading into this season, neither of us here at R&R were big believers in the Steelers’ chances of making a deep playoff run. When the Steelers made only a handful of cost-effective moves, and once again insisted on only rostering one legitimate outside receiver – this time by trading for DK Metcalf, but also trading away George Pickens – we wondered if they were attempting to quietly tank the season.
Our outlook changed little after the big trade with Miami. This column was skeptical about the “win now” mentality the team was selling over the summer, with “cautious optimism” being the most enthusiasm we could muster in our review of the trade.
What we felt then, and have for quite some time, is something many of you have expressed to us as well: these Steelers aren’t without talent, but they consistently and infuriatingly find ways to come up short. The reasons behind this have been pored over ad nauseam each year since the Steelers last won in the postseason.
We’re not really interested in relitigating those same talking points, at least not until the season is officially over for the home team. Instead, we’re hoping to embrace the holiday spirit. In true Thanksgiving fashion, this week R&R will heat up some leftovers by reviewing our preseason predictions. Then we’ll try to find something to be thankful for with the Steelers.
Back in July and again before the season opener, R&R made several predictions about the Steelers’ season, as well as some predictions about their AFC North rivals.
RB: A common complaint about sports media is that they don’t hold themselves accountable enough when it comes to the time-honored tradition of dishing out “takes.”
Well, that’s not the case here at BTSC.
And that’s especially true as I’m not exactly proud of my July AFC North predictions seeing daylight again given how they turned out. We’ll start there so we can end on a better note with my early September preseason takes.
Behold – my July AFC North predictions (three varying levels of risk):
(You can laugh, I don’t mind).
