Behind the Steel Curtain
There’s no way to sugarcoat it. The Steelers are coming off another soul-crushing loss. Making matters worse, Sunday’s bout against the Chargers was another lopsided defeat on primetime. That means there were millions of eyes on the Steelers’ latest episode of dysfunction, and thus even more of the same old discussions and jokes around the water cooler and family get-togethers: “What’s gone wrong with the Steelers?”
If you’ve been reading our column, you already know where Read & React stands on this. There isn’t just one singular issue causing all of our grief, but rather a mixture of collective misfires and a stubborn organizational aversion to change. Whether you think the largest share of the blame belongs with the players, the coaching staff, or the front office, you’re at least partially right.
Read & React has also been pretty consistent about our expectations for the Steelers this season. They aren’t serious championship contenders, but they still have enough talent to compete for a playoff spot. Another bad loss doesn’t change our assessment of what we already knew would be a volatile team, based on its roster build and recent team history.
With eight games remaining, the playoffs are still very much in play. The room for error has never been tighter, though.
The Ravens quickly shrank the Steelers’ division lead and still have two games against Pittsburgh on deck. Baltimore is among nine other AFC teams that either trail the Steelers by just one game or have a better record presently.
As a reminder, there are seven playoff spots. If the Steelers don’t win the division, they’ll be competing with five other teams for the final three spots.
The Steelers’ remaining schedule still has four division games, the Lions, Bears, Bills, and Dolphins.
One could argue bottoming out and missing the playoffs might be better for the Steelers in the long term, but that’s a discussion for another day. We can question the heart of this roster, but they won’t be intentionally trying to lose.
So rather than focus on what went wrong Sunday night – which is a lot of the same things that have been wrong the past several seasons – we’ll instead look for the few bright spots that were present in Sunday’s game. We’ll also review our previous notes about the Bengals as the Steelers prepare to face them for the second time this year.
RB: I’ll start with a more obvious one: the Steelers’ three-headed monster at outside linebacker has been thriving in recent weeks.
Pittsburgh has recorded 10 sacks over the last two weeks, with seven coming from the combination of T.J. Watt, Nick Herbig, and Alex Highsmith.
Pittsburgh has given Herbig 30-plus snaps in each of the last two weeks, and the results have been good. Herbig continues to have the best pressure rate (15.2%) of Steelers with 100-plus pass rush snaps this year, and his increased...
