Steelers have rebounded from previous failed Septembers. Can the 2021 team do the same?
The Pittsburgh Steelers (1-2) are 6.5-point underdogs for Sunday’s game in Green Bay (2-1). Based on how the Steelers have performed this year, that actually seems like a somewhat narrow line.
“We are playing poorly. We don’t desire to be. But we are,” coach Mike Tomlin admitted Tuesday.
September struggles aren’t exactly new to Tomlin. With so much emphasis placed on the franchise’s three consecutive late-season collapses, we tend to overlook some of the bad starts Tomlin’s teams have had to overcome to stay relevant during what could’ve been lost years.
Prior to last year’s 11-0 start, the Steelers began 0-3 and then found themselves at 1-4 in 2019 after Ben Roethlisberger’s injury. That team eventually got to 8-5 and seemed to be in great position for at least a wild card spot before fading down the stretch.
In 2018, the Steelers began the year 1-2-1 (with an infamous season-opening tie against the Cleveland Browns) before rattling off five straight wins and entering Thanksgiving weekend at 7-2-1. Before, yes, another December slide.
Even Tomlin’s 13-3 Steelers of 2017 suffered two of their losses in the first five weeks of the season. And they looked bad doing it. They were blown out 30-9 at home by the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 5, lost to a 5-11 Chicago Bears team in Week 3 and almost lost to the 0-16 Browns, eking out a 21-18 victory in the season opener.
Playoff teams in 2014 and 2015 were only 2-2 after the first four weeks, and, perhaps most memorably, the 2013 team started 0-4 and was only 2-6 at the midway point. Yet that edition of the club finished 8-8 and only missed the playoffs because Ryan Succop missed a field goal for the Kansas City Chiefs against the San Diego Chargers on the last Sunday of the season.
Midseason rallies after lethargic starts are part of the reason why Tomlin has never had a losing season. Those late-season tumbles, though, are part of the reason he hasn’t enjoyed a playoff win in any of the past four years.
So on Tuesday, I asked Tomlin if any similarities exist between this year’s team and those in ‘19, ’18 and ‘13 in hopes that this Titantic-esque start to the year may eventually dock safely in the postseason.
“I hadn’t thought a lot about it, to be honest with you,” Tomlin said. “I live in the here and the now, the variables that are in front of me with this particular group. I don’t waste a lot of time comparing present circumstances to past circumstances that have different variables and different men involved. It just doesn’t help me get out of the stadium this week.”
Take what you will from that non-answer. Here’s what I take.
Either Tomlin genuinely doesn’t remember enough about those seasons, even though at least two of them are fairly fresh in everyone’s mind.
Or he has less faith in this team’s ability to rebound than he did in those other versions of the roster.
That would be odd, especially in comparison to the 2019 team that had lost Roethlisberger and was down to just Mason Rudolph and Devlin Hodges at quarterback.
Those other clubs, though, had a healthy pre-elbow surgery Roethlisberger and a better offensive line, which appear to be two of the biggest problems facing this year’s group.
The 2021 Steelers are also facing a brutal schedule that will likely have them as underdogs in each of the next four weeks (unless they get on a winning streak) and pits them against four consecutive AFC playoff teams from a year ago to wrap up the season.
“We’re not gonna push the panic button,” Tomlin said. “We’re not going to dramatically change who and what we are at this juncture. We’re not resistant to change for the purposes of getting better, but we’re not going to be so unsteady that we move away from our compass, the identity that we worked hard to develop.”
If he and his assistant coaches can’t figure out a way to do that, Tomlin may be looking at his first losing season and the first for this organization since 2003.
Tim Benz is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Tim at tbenz@triblive.com or via X. All tweets could be reposted. All emails are subject to publication unless specified otherwise.
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