Steelers ‘appreciate’ 8-0 start, but final unbeatens don’t often claim real prize

These 2020 Pittsburgh Steelers might not be the best squad the franchise has fielded in its almost nine decades of existence.

But these Steelers have done something none of their 87 predecessors did: win their first eight games. Never before, either, had any Steelers team entered a weekend as the final remaining unbeaten team.

As they put their undefeated record on the line 4:25 p.m. Sunday against the Cincinnati Bengals, the Steelers are balancing an appreciation of how unprecedented and extraordinary their 8-0 start is while also recognizing it will be relegated to little more than a franchise footnote should this season fall short of the Super Bowl.

“We acknowledge that we’re 8-0,” running back James Conner said, “and that it’s the first time in team history and that there’s been some of the best teams assembled in football in the world represented the Pittsburgh Steelers (but never did that). Us being 8-0, it’s special.

“The job’s not finished, though.”

Finishing “the job” — winning the Super Bowl — has been far from assured for the NFL’s last undefeated team.

A look at data compiled by pro-football-reference.com reveals that since the turn of this century, only once has the final remaining unbeaten (the 2006 Indianapolis Colts) won the Super Bowl. Since 2000, more have missed the playoffs (three) than won the Super Bowl.

“(Being the last unbeaten), I think it’s… it’s… cool, I guess,” defensive co-captain T.J. Watt said. “But there is so much work that’s left to be done. We weren’t super thrilled with how we played last week …

“We know there is a lot of meat left here on the bone, and we can continue to go out here and have great weeks of practice and continue to try to be a team on the rise and hopefully we can keep this streak going.”

If the Steelers’ season-opening streak hits nine with a win against the Bengals, they’ll achieve a 9-0 start to the season that’s been bested once over the past seven seasons: The 2015 Panthers won their first 14 games.

The Panthers lost the Super Bowl that season. Then again, 9-0 is how far those 2006 Colts got without a loss before they claimed the Vince Lombardi Trophy — even after going 3-4 down the stretch of the regular season.

Both the 9-0 start and mediocre finish to the regular season are long forgotten, of course, because for the most part all history remembers is who wins the Super Bowl.

That’s what the only other Steelers team that won its first seven games did. Those 1978 Steelers are recalled fondly, but so are the 1974 Steelers that started 1-1-1 and the 2005 Steelers that at one point sat at 7-5. All are revered for how they finished, not how they started.

“I appreciate the work up to this point to get this far,” defensive co-captain Cameron Heyward said. “(But all) we can say (right now) is the worst we can finish is 8-8. I don’t like to throw parties or hurrahs about halfway through the season when we’ve got a lot more work on our hands.”

The Steelers are like the crosstown Penguins in that they’ve cemented a legacy of championships in lieu of dominating regular seasons. The Penguins only have had the NHL’s best record once. They didn’t win the Stanley Cup championship that season (1992-93), but they claimed it five other times.

The Steelers have won six Super Bowls despite only three times even sharing a designation as the final unbeaten standing. The 1978 Steelers and Los Angeles Rams had 7-0 starts, and the Steelers in 2010 were one of three teams to start a mere 3-0.

The 2016 Minnesota Vikings and 1993 New Orleans Saints (both 5-0) are the only teams since the 1970 NFL/AFL merger to miss the playoffs after being the final undefeated standing. A handful of others have done it while sharing that designation, but those were after relatively pedestrian starts of either 3-0 or 4-0.

Apart from the immortal 1972 Miami Dolphins, who won all 17 games including the playoffs in claiming Super Bowl V, three NFL teams have completed undefeated and untied REGULAR seasons: the 1934 Chicago Bears, the 1942 Bears, and the 2007 New England Patriots.

Bengals coach Zac Taylor was an assistant on the 2018 Rams that had the NFL’s best start that year at 8-0. He said that getting halfway to 16-0 wasn’t enough yet to make it a realistic goal or talking point in the locker room.

“You have too many games left to play,” Taylor said. “And I would imagine (the Steelers) do a great job on just focusing on the week that’s in front of them, too.”

That doesn’t mean 8-0 isn’t worth celebrating. In four of the past nine seasons, no team began with more than a five-game winning streak. Eight times in the 50 seasons since the merger, nobody made it to 5-0. The Steelers hadn’t gone 4-0 over any of their previous 40 seasons.

“I’m really proud of our football team, 8-0 for the first time in franchise history,” Tomlin beamed after the Steelers beat the Dallas Cowboys last week. “We are humbled and honored to be that group.”

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