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Brooke Pryor, ESPN Workers Author
PITTSBURGH — The very last thing members of the Pittsburgh Steelers see earlier than reaching the internal sanctum of their locker room at Acrisure Stadium are steely silver letters mounted on a black cinder block wall. They spell out the identical phrase coach Mike Tomlin repeats numerous occasions a day: The Normal is the Normal.
With six Lombardis proudly displayed within the trophy case, the established normal of the celebrated franchise is a world championship. However with 5 straight postseason losses courting again to 2016, the Steelers have fallen brief.
They enter Saturday’s prime-time wild-card sport in opposition to the Baltimore Ravens (8 p.m. ET, Prime Video) having completed 10-7 — however on a four-game shedding streak that price them the AFC North title.
It has been eight years since their final playoff win and 14 years since a Tremendous Bowl berth. Tomlin’s lone Tremendous Bowl win was practically 16 years in the past.
“What you talked about is my story,” Tomlin stated Monday, requested in regards to the streak of playoff losses. “It is not this collective’s story. Many of those guys concerned don’t tote these luggage. I fortunately tote these luggage, but it surely’s not one thing that I’ll venture on the collective.”
Precisely 357 days earlier, Tomlin expressed the identical sentiment to the Steelers’ staff web site forward of the Steelers’ final try to interrupt the cycle, a wild-card loss on the Buffalo Payments.
“It is not their burden to bear,” Tomlin informed the location final January. “I do not ask them to tote my baggage. I do not venture my baggage onto them. … Generally you are kidding your self in case you suppose historical past like that’s essential to guys who weren’t part of it. It is not.”
Regardless of the playoff skid, staff proprietor and president Artwork Rooney II prolonged Tomlin a three-year contract extension previous to the 2024 season. However Rooney was additionally agency in his want to snap the streak in final 12 months’s end-of-season information convention.
“There’s an urgency,” Rooney stated then of profitable a playoff sport. “I believe all people, myself, Mike, guys which were on the staff for some time … all people, we have had sufficient of this. It is time to get some wins. It is time to take these subsequent steps.”
And but, regardless of showing to take a step ahead with a brand new quarterback room and an 8-2 begin, the season-ending slide has seemingly put the Steelers farther away from breaking their one-and-done playoff cycle, not to mention from a deep postseason run. The Steelers enter the playoffs in a frustratingly acquainted spot because the albatross of the franchise’s longest playoff drought of the Tremendous Bowl period enshrouds the legacy of a proud group and the longer term Corridor of Fame head coach who famously hasn’t had a shedding season.
However to the Steelers trustworthy, by no means shedding means quite a bit much less if their staff is not profitable within the postseason.
EVEN IN THE wake of one other first-round loss, members of the Steelers walked off the snowy Buffalo discipline a 12 months in the past feeling they had been on the precipice of ending the drought. The staff weathered a slew of accidents and inconsistent quarterback play to rally for the No. 7 seed.
With a strong, younger nucleus of offensive talent place gamers — working again Najee Harris, large receiver George Pickens and tight finish Pat Freiermuth — to enhance a veteran protection, the Steelers appeared a pair items away from being a contender.
“I do really feel that we’re nearer this 12 months at this stage of the sport than we had been at this level final 12 months,” Rooney stated on the season-ending information convention. “I believed we had a extremely strong rookie class, a couple of guys that basically stepped in as strong starters for the longer term. Want to try this once more. Have to have one other good draft class. I believe we’ve a core group of gamers that we will compete [with.] I believe the largest factor we’d like is high quality play on the quarterback place.”
For a lot of the season, the Steelers bought that from Russell Wilson and Justin Fields. Bolstered by complementary soccer courtesy of a turnover-happy protection and Professional Bowl kicker Chris Boswell with a seemingly limitless vary, the pair helped the Steelers to their finest begin since beginning 11-0 in 2020. By way of Week 14, the Steelers had been tied atop the league with a plus-17 turnover differential, and the protection led the NFL with 28 takeaways, together with one other league-best 23 fumbles.
Pittsburgh clinched its playoff berth in Week 15 — the identical weekend its shedding streak started when the Eagles defeated them 27-13 and quarterback Jalen Hurts had three touchdowns and threw for 290 yards. On the time, Tomlin and the Steelers dismissed the concept one unhealthy efficiency in opposition to one of many league’s high NFC groups may snowball.
However the hairline fractures uncovered by the Eagles spiraled into spider net cracks over the following three video games. Double-digit losses to the Ravens and Chiefs adopted, plus an in depth one to a Bengals staff they beat in a shootout 5 weeks earlier.
“We’re not doing the basic issues nicely sufficient,” Tomlin stated after the Christmas loss to the Chiefs.
An offense that averaged 28 factors and 372 yards per sport in Wilson’s first seven begins managed 14 factors and 259 yards per sport in his final 4.
“Everyone on this room bought to need it,” linebacker Alex Highsmith stated. “That is the one manner we will transfer on and get higher.”
Maybe probably the most alarming of these losses was the regular-season finale to the Bengals the place the offense mustered simply 17 factors and 193 yards of offense in opposition to a staff that completed the season permitting 25 factors and 348 yards per sport and fired its defensive coordinator a day after the season.
The Steelers’ protection, too, seemingly regressed in that stretch. The Steelers pressured three takeaways every within the 4 video games previous to the Eagles loss, however starting that week, they’d 5 complete within the closing 4 video games. By way of the primary 13 video games, the protection was among the many finest within the league limiting groups to 18 factors and 310 yards per outing. In that four-game slide, nonetheless, these numbers jumped to 27 factors and 381 yards per sport.
They completed 4-3 in opposition to groups who made the 2024 playoffs and 6-4 in opposition to non-playoff groups.
As a by-product of the late-season stoop, the Steelers fumbled away a two-game lead within the division and have become simply the third staff in NFL historical past to enter the playoffs on a shedding streak of at the very least 4 video games.
“It is essential that we take the teachings realized from the final month,” Tomlin stated. “Sadly, you most likely study extra when there’s failure, and clearly we have skilled a few of that, a few of it not jaw-dropping issues or earth-shattering issues, extra affirmation of issues that we imagine in or issues that we engineer victory by.”
TWO PLAYERS ON the roster have gained a playoff sport with the Steelers: Boswell and defensive deal with Cameron Heyward. With six discipline targets, Boswell accounted for all the Steelers’ factors within the 2016 divisional spherical win in opposition to the Chiefs. He additionally made 4 — together with the game-winner — within the 2015 wild-card win in opposition to the Bengals. Heyward, although inactive for the 2 2016 playoff wins, pressured a fumble in 2015.
Linebacker T.J. Watt has been on the roster for every of the final 4 playoff losses. Within the common seasons that preceded these winless postseasons, Watt tied Michael Strahan’s NFL sack file, gained NFL Defensive Participant of the 12 months and was named to 4 All-Professional groups. The Steelers had 9 different first-team All-Professional picks, the NFL’s main passer (Ben Roethlisberger, 2018) and main receiver (Antonio Brown, 2017) in that interval, too.
“All of it sucks,” Tomlin stated days after shedding to Buffalo final 12 months. “It does. It is not levels of suck. All of it sucks. I might relatively be working. … It is a actually good feeling to be in that match because the street will get slim and to be residing out the issues that you just aspire to dwell out over the past 12 months. It is not us, and it sucks.”
Even with vital roster turnover all through the eight-year drought, there may be an simple, troubling pattern to the Steelers’ latest postseason woes.
In every of their final 5 playoff losses, the Steelers fell in a giant gap early, trailed by at the very least a rating at halftime and had been outscored 105-38 within the first two quarters.
Tomlin, although, declined Monday to say if he’d realized something from these losses to take into this 12 months’s wild-card sport.
“To be sincere with you, I hadn’t spent plenty of time pondering that within the final 48 hours,” he stated. “I have been preparing particularly for this sport with this collective.”
Within the 2016 AFC Championship Sport, Tom Brady and the New England Patriots constructed a 17-6 benefit halfway by way of the second quarter, and the Steelers by no means bought nearer than an eight-point halftime differential.
A 12 months later, the Jacksonville Jaguars jumped out to a 21-0 lead in lower than 20 minutes of sport time with a gap possession rating, an interception and two extra fast touchdowns. The Steelers, who had a first-round bye because the No. 2 seed that 12 months, fought again, however fell in a disastrous 45-42 loss that improbably marked the final playoff sport for the trio of Roethlisberger, Brown and Le’Veon Bell.
A two-year postseason drought adopted, but it surely did not dry up the Steelers’ recurring playoff issues.
Enjoying in entrance of empty stands at Acrisure Stadium on the finish of the COVID-19-affected season, the Cleveland Browns shocked the Steelers six seconds into the wild-card sport when Maurkice Pouncey’s opening snap sailed over Roethlisberger’s head and bounced 20 yards within the unsuitable path till Karl Joseph recovered it ultimately zone for a landing. That snowballed right into a 28-0 deficit by the tip of the primary quarter and a 35-10 gap at halftime. The Browns’ closing margin of victory was simply 11 factors, but it surely hardly mirrored the thorough beat down of a Steelers staff that started off the season 11-0.
“We had been a bunch that died on the vine,” Tomlin stated after that loss.
The Steelers’ most up-to-date playoff losses had extra of the identical lopsided begins, however in every of these, the outcomes had been considerably anticipated because the Steelers, who clinched the AFC’s closing playoff spot with a late-season rally, squared off in opposition to the league’s high groups on the street.
Going through No. 2 seed Kansas Metropolis in 2021 in Roethlisberger’s closing sport, the Steelers held serve within the first quarter and even went up 7-0 on Watt’s second-quarter scoop and rating. However the Chiefs rattled off three straight touchdowns to take a 21-7 halftime lead and finally gained.
And in final 12 months’s wild-card loss, the Steelers trailed 21-0 halfway by way of the second quarter and scored lower than two minutes earlier than halftime to chop their deficit to 14. A second-half surge pulled the Steelers inside a rating early within the fourth quarter, however the Payments responded with a surgical landing drive and held off the Steelers over the ultimate six minutes to win 31-17.
“No staff is identical because the earlier 12 months, in order that’s at all times a problem,” Watt stated the following day. “However we will should take an extended onerous look and determine this factor out. I preserve having the identical dialog yearly it appears.”
Until the Steelers pull off the upset Saturday evening, Watt will doubtless have that dialog for the fifth time in his profession.
The end result of the 2024 playoffs doubtless will not dictate Tomlin’s legacy in Pittsburgh or his future as the top coach of the franchise. However because the staff continues to come back up empty within the playoffs, a show case ready for trophies is as a substitute filling up with baggage.
