Tim Benz: Steelers’ desire to always avoid a rebuild illustrated by Lions’ never-ending process

Pittsburgh Steelers defensive end Cameron Heyward said he won’t be able to fully appreciate it until he retires.

The fact that the team that drafted him has never had to go through a season like the one Sunday’s opponent, the Detroit Lions, are going through.

For Heyward, a bad season in Pittsburgh has been 8-8. Or 9-6-1.

Granted, it’s happened a few times lately. The playoff wins haven’t been there either. At least not as often as the Steelers would’ve liked since their trip to Super Bowl XLV.

But they’ve never been 0-8 like this year’s edition of the Lions.

Winless with just over half a season left to go. Staring at the potential of a second 0-for-the-season campaign in 14 years. A fifth-straight year doomed to end out of the playoffs. Probably winning six games or less for the 14th time since 2000. No playoff wins since 1991.

Think about that. The Lions’ playoff win drought is even longer than the Pirates’ division title drought.

How’s that for context?

That’s why Ben Roethlisberger is still the quarterback of the Steelers after the bleak end to 2020. That’s why I wouldn’t rule out the idea of him returning next year.

That’s why the franchise traded a first-round pick for Minkah Fitzpatrick when the team was 0-2 in 2019. That’s why they were looking at Fletcher Cox at the trade deadline this year at 4-3. That’s why JuJu Smith-Schuster was kept in the offseason.

Because Art Rooney II and Kevin Colbert and Mike Tomlin look at a team like the Lions and say, “We never want to become … that.”

The longer they can extend the window of this iteration of the franchise, the less likely that prospect becomes. In other words, give it at least one more “one more year.”

Organizationally, the Steelers may be flirting with a perpetual state of good, not great. A decade removed from a Super Bowl, they might be a long way away from going back to one, but also never bad enough to commit to a full rebuild.

Over the past nine years, the Steelers have won an average of 10 games per regular season. But they’ve missed the playoffs four of those seasons and failed to win a playoff game in seven of them.

Still, that’s viewed internally as being better than committing to a full rebuild. Because maybe once you start rebuilding, you never stop doing it. As the visiting franchise this weekend has illustrated.

Or, you know, the franchise that is housed at the other end of the parking lots on the North Shore.

“They are very competitive,” Heyward said of the Lions. “I know they don’t have the record they want. But they are aggressive in their approach. Sometimes the ball just doesn’t bounce your way the first eight games. But we have to be on our Ps and Qs to get a ‘W.’”

The ball doesn’t bounce your way … eight straight games? There’s “not bouncing your way” the past two or three weeks. But eight times in eight games?

Heyward wasn’t trying to be dismissive or sarcastic. So I will.

The ball hasn’t bounced Detroit’s way for about the past three decades.

I mean, the worst seasons the Steelers have had since that ’91 campaign when Detroit won their last playoff game was 6-10 in 1999 and 2003.

After the ’99 season, they were 13-3 and winners of the AFC Central by 2001. When they dipped to 6-10 again in ’03, they drafted Roethlisberger, went 15-1 in ’04, won the Super Bowl the next season and haven’t been below .500 since.

If the Lions were to somehow scratch out three of four wins over the next few weeks, there might be a parade in downtown Detroit. That might even be true after next year.

The Steelers never want to live in that space. So they’ll draw out the waning years of their current existence as long as possible as they reload on the fly instead of making an obvious teardown.

That approach has worked a few times in the Heinz Field era. Maybe it can happen again. Or maybe that’ll backfire. Maybe that’ll lead to them wandering the NFL desert looking for an oasis of a .500 season and a wild card berth every few years.

But that prospect still feels eons away to Rooney II, Colbert and Tomlin so long as they can look at the roster and see a Hall of Fame quarterback, an All-Pro like Heyward, a defensive Player of the Year candidate at linebacker, and a young running back and tight end who were drafted to help this year as much as they were to help five years from now.

During a conference call with Pittsburgh media, first-year Lions coach Dan Campbell gushed about Tomlin and “the program” he is running in Pittsburgh. You could hear in his voice that Tomlin and the Steelers were enjoying everything he wants to construct in Detroit.

“He has built a culture. He has built a program. It’s built to last,” Campbell said. “It shows up every year. Just the way they play football. I’ve got a ton of respect for him.”

But no one here now had to go through what Campbell and the Lions are enduring to get to a similar level. Tomlin showed up two years removed from a Super Bowl. Heyward was drafted the year after an AFC Championship. In ’04, Roethlisberger jumped onto a roster that had just won the division in ’01 and ’02. Colbert — who left the Lions to join the Steelers in 2000 — joined the team after two “dark years” of seven and six wins. They were back in the playoffs a year after he was hired.

There was an infrastructure of winning in Pittsburgh. In Detroit, it doesn’t even feel like they can finish the blueprints.

I feel bad for Campbell. People can make fun of his “knee biting” speeches and high school-esque, rah-rah style all they want. He’s desperate to win.

A gut-wrenching, buzzer-beating loss to the Baltimore Ravens and a 44-6 blowout defeat to the mediocre Philadelphia Eagles haven’t beaten the enthusiasm out of him yet. So give Campbell — and the Detroit players — credit for that.

And be just a little bit nervous that every dog really does have its day. This 8.5-point underdog may finally sneak out a win against a Steelers team that’s been known to lose a “there’s no way they can lose this one” kind of game (or two) (or three) (or five) in recent years.

But, also, take a moment to realize that despite how empty the past four years have felt in Pittsburgh, it’s never been as bad as it has been in Detroit.

And hopefully never will be.