Tim Benz: Steelers trying to get by with a little help from their friends once again

It’s certainly possible that the Pittsburgh Steelers could get the help they need this weekend to qualify for the NFL playoffs.

I’m just longing for the days when they didn’t always need it.

Hey, don’t get me wrong. I like the Beatles and Joe Cocker as much as the next guy. I just think it would be nice for the Steelers to get back to a time when they didn’t always “need a little help” from their friends to make the postseason.

That was the case in 2020. At 11-2, the Steelers had a postseason berth wrapped up by the end of Week 14, even though they had lost a game in Buffalo. They’d eventually clinch the AFC North during a Week 16 victory over the Indianapolis Colts at (then) Heinz Field.

But in five of the past six years the Steelers have entered the final weekend of the regular season needing assistance from at least one other team to make the AFC playoff bracket. Sometimes that’s worked out and sometimes, it hasn’t.

• In 2018, the Steelers beat the Cincinnati Bengals at Heinz Field to improve to 9-6-1. After the game, many players stayed on the field and watched the big screen in the stadium to see if the 7-7-1 Cleveland Browns could upset the 9-6 Ravens in Baltimore. Cleveland’s Baker Mayfield led a hurried comeback to pull the Browns within two points. But he was intercepted by C.J. Mosley approaching field goal range, and Baltimore won 26-24, eliminating the Steelers and ending their season.

• Much like this year, the 2019 team headed down to Baltimore against the Ravens backups for a bad-weather game after Baltimore had already locked up the No. 1 seed in the conference. The Steelers needed to win, and they needed the Tennessee Titans to lose to the Houston Texans to make the postseason. Neither thing happened.

• In 2021, the Steelers miraculously got in on the final Sunday of the season when they beat Baltimore 16-13 in overtime to improve to 9-7-1, somehow 2-14 Jacksonville shocked 9-7 Indianapolis 26-11, and the Las Vegas Raiders narrowly avoided a tie against the Los Angeles Chargers to push the Steelers into the playoffs.

• Last year, the Steelers once again beat Cleveland (28-14) to keep their hopes alive in Week 18 at 9-8. They also got help from Buffalo, beating New England 35-23. However, the New York Jets couldn’t upset the Miami Dolphins. So Miami’s 11-6 win got the Dolphins in as the No. 7 seed and kept the Steelers out.

That says nothing of many other memorable “need help to get in” finale weekends in the Mike Tomlin era. Like when the Steelers had to have a “nothing to play for” Bills team take out the Jets in the final week of 2015 so the Steelers could keep their season going. That inexplicably happened as the Steelers won in Cleveland 28-12.

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On the downside, Ryan Succop missed a kick for the Kansas City Chiefs in a late afternoon game against the Chargers that would’ve gotten the 2013 Steelers into the playoffs after the team had improved to 8-8 earlier in the day with a 20-7 victory against the Browns.

That brings us to this weekend when the Steelers (9-7) need to win in Baltimore on Saturday against a 13-3 Ravens team that’s resting a lot of key players. If they do that and either the Bills (10-6) lose in Miami (11-5) or the Jaguars (9-7) fall in Tennessee (5-11), the Steelers will make the playoffs.

The Jaguars and Bills are both favored to win on the road. Other complicated playoff scenarios exist for the Steelers. But they are extreme long shots.

I’d just settle for a year when the Steelers controlled their own fate on the last weekend of the schedule. I mean, they’ve been in this spot so often of late; just about every team that bailed them out in recent years (like the Bills and Jaguars) is now a team they need to lose. Meanwhile, teams they needed to lose on the final day in recent seasons (like the Titans and Dolphins) are their only hope to stay alive.

It’s said that “politics makes for strange bedfellows.” So does the annual AFC playoff picture. So it’d just be nice if, for a change, the Steelers didn’t need to big spoon so many other teams come early January.

But this is what happens when you lose three straight games in December, including two in a row at home to two-win teams (Arizona and New England), as the Steelers did this year.

Or when you start 2-6 (2022). Or when you have two separate three-game losing streaks (2021). Or when you go from 8-5 to 8-8 (2019). Or when 7-2-1 turns into 9-6-1 (2018).

I know, I know. I’ll say it before you do. “But, Tim, at least the Steelers are alive the last week of every year! Would you rather be the Jets?”

That’s just another way of saying, “Hey! Don’t you know Mike Tomlin has never had a losing season?”

Yes, I do. I just wish being alive late in the season and not sinking below .500 weren’t the accepted barometers for success in Pittsburgh. But it appears they are.

Unless the Steelers beat Baltimore and get that help from their friends, there will be no hope for anything better this postseason.

Again.