Tim Benz: History says this is when the Steelers heat up. History better repeat itself

Over the course of the past six seasons, there have been a pair of obvious constants for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

• They haven’t won a playoff game.

• They haven’t had a losing season.

You’re probably aware of that rather annoying push-pull dynamic by now, aren’t you?

There have also been a few variables to the Steelers’ performance in that time. Some years they’ve gotten off to lousy starts — like 1-2-1 in 2018, 1-4 in 2019, 1-3 in 2021 and 1-4 last year.

Some years they have crashed late to end the year — such as 2-4 in 2018, 0-3 in 2019 and 1-5 (including a playoff loss) in 2020.

But a third consistent trait is how well the Steelers usually perform from mid-October through the end of November. If you look at the Steelers’ regular-season results over the past six years from Week 5 through the end of November, the franchise is 31-10-1.

2017: 6-1

2018: 6-1

2019: 5-2

2020: 7-0

2021: 4-2-1

2022: 3-4

If you want to be generous, tack another win on to 2019 when the Steelers won a game on Dec. 1 over Cleveland and another onto 2020 when the Thanksgiving “Covid Bowl” game against Baltimore was pushed until Dec. 2.

Granted, last year was a bit of a negative outlier. Coach Mike Tomlin’s team didn’t really heat up until the Week 9 bye. But the Week 4 quarterback switch from Mitch Trubisky to Kenny Pickett was a significant early season hiccup.

So, if the Steelers are to make it back to the playoffs this season, this is the time on the calendar when they usually make their push. The Steelers are already off on the right foot this year having beaten Baltimore 17-10 in Week 5 heading into last Sunday’s off weekend.

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“Look at what we’re doing well. Continue to do those things,” Pickett said of trying to improve the team during the bye. “There’s going to always be things that we could take out or add. Tune up some certain things that we’re not doing well, there’s different ways to attack it.”

If they were in need of the bye week to nose around the facility and find a few more bags of Black and Gold pixie dust that they could sprinkle on the team like they did last year, here’s hoping they found it. Because that win over the Ravens, while vital, wasn’t exactly convincing that a mountain of good fortune is about to come.

“We’re a lot better than where we were (at 2-6 entering the bye last year),” Pickett said. “It didn’t go perfect to get to this point. But we’re in a position that we were able to win some games down the stretch and be in a good spot here going into the bye week. So there are definitely positives. There are always negatives that you can work on during the bye week. But I think (we’re) obviously better from the standpoint of this year versus last year.”

In terms of what the Steelers are facing between now and the end of November, they’ve got a road game in Los Angeles against the Rams (3-3) this week. Then home games against the Jaguars (4-2), Titans (2-4) and Packers (2-3). Those four teams have a combined record of 11-12. Two of those teams — Jacksonville (Trevor Lawrence) and Tennessee (Ryan Tannehill) — have quarterbacks that are dealing with leg injuries coming off Week 6.

There’s room for the Steelers to stack up some wins if they use this bye week as effectively as they did a season ago.

Then the Steelers have to play road divisional games at Cleveland (3-2) on Nov. 19 and Cincinnati (3-3) on Nov. 26.

So Pickett better be right, and the Steelers better get right on offense because if they don’t make hay when they normally do at this time of the calendar, the stretch of seasons without a playoff win will be poised to continue.

And that stretch of avoiding any losing seasons the national media seems to hold in such high regard may very much be put in jeopardy.