Behind the Steel Curtain
“Playoffs? Don’t talk about playoffs. You kidding me?”
Fight the urge to turn into your inner Jim Mora, because we are talking about playoffs. Despite the well-documented problems with this very imperfect Steelers team, they find themselves in first place and controlling their own destiny with four games remaining on the schedule.
Look around the AFC, and there’s no denying that the rest of the conference is riddled with flaws, too. Its playoff picture is competitive in that 12 teams have yet to be mathematically eliminated, but it’s not exactly made up of the strongest and most reliable teams. Consider the three other division leaders — the Broncos, Patriots, and Jaguars — they aren’t exactly the unbeatable juggernauts led by Brady, Manning, or Mahomes in recent memory. Pittsburgh has already beaten New England, and neither Denver nor Jacksonville has a quarterback that football fans would consider trustworthy in the playoffs.
We still have our doubts and concerns about the Steelers’ current roster, of course. The playoffs are anything but guaranteed.
But we’re nearly in the full holiday season swing, so why not allow for a sliver of optimism and speculate on the possibilities this final month of the season could have in store for us?
This week, Read & React is embracing our inner Lloyd Christmas and daring to talk about the playoffs.
RB: I’ve been calling “yes” for a while now, even if my confidence has faltered once or twice, given recent low points in the season. But with the Steelers back in the AFC North lead following a win over the once-again struggling Ravens, it’s no longer a hot take to see them making the wild-card round.
In fact, NFL.com’s playoff projector has now updated the Steelers to a 66% chance of making it to an extra week, dumping its previous Ravens optimism (Baltimore now sits at 33%).
Look, Mike Tomlin has his issues as a head coach. We covered that in-depth in last week’s R&R. But while he has a playoff win problem, he doesn’t have an issue getting there. The Steelers have made the postseason in four of the past five seasons, including instances with rosters worse than Pittsburgh’s 2025 squad.
As I’ve now laid out a few times this week, the Steelers’ upcoming schedule of Dolphins, Lions, Browns, and Ravens compares well to Baltimore’s final stretch of Bengals, Patriots, Packers, and Steelers.
With Pittsburgh at 7-6 (including a win in Baltimore) and the Ravens at 6-7, all the Steelers need to do is win as many games as the Ravens over the final stretch of the season to win the North and make the playoffs.
However, it’s shaping up to be a nail-biting final four games.
I have Pittsburgh going 2-2 to end the season – the losses because of the (gestures at everything) repeated collapses they’ve suffered on both sides of the ball throughout the...
