Tim Benz: With the Steelers, the harder you look for silver linings the more rust you'll find

A day after the Pittsburgh Steelers lost 27-13 in Philadelphia against the 12-2 Eagles, I didn’t hear a lot of Pittsburgh fans rationalizing reasons why the Steelers should’ve won the game.

What I did hear a lot of, though, was rationalizing why the game wasn’t as bad as it may have first looked while watching it live.

Honestly, that’s basically the same thing.

“Well, you know, if Najee Harris doesn’t fumble in Philadelphia territory in the third quarter down 20-13 …”

“Well, you know, if the Steelers didn’t get screwed by so many bad calls …”

“Well, you know, if George Pickens wasn’t hurt …”

Right. Sure.

Now, if you are someone who advanced any of these arguments as a reason why the Steelers played better than the final score indicated on Sunday, answer these questions for me:

“What if the Eagles didn’t fumble twice in the first half?”

“What if the Eagles played the whole game with Saquon Barkley instead of him getting just 61% of the snaps — his lowest total in a month?”

“What if the Eagles actually tried to score more quickly than they did by efficiently grinding out drives of nine, 13, 13 and 21 plays?”

Do you think Philly would have put up a lot more points if it wanted to do so? I think Jalen Hurts’ 125.3 passer rating and the dueling 100-yard receiving days from A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith certainly suggest they would’ve.

In fact, the deeper you dig, the worse the numbers look.

The Steelers had barely more than 20 minutes of possession time. They converted only three third downs while allowing 10. They yielded 401 total yards and gained just 163. No one on the team rushed for more than 14 yards. They only ran 41 plays and averaged a meager 4 yards per play.

That’s before we get to the poor tackling, Russell Wilson’s batted passes, the questionable coaching decisions, the lack of open receivers, and the failure to open rush lanes.

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Yeah, it’s best to take this box score and run it through the paper shredder. Suppress this one deep into the darkest corner of your memory banks.

The longer you keep looking at this result in Philadelphia, trying to find a ray of sunshine, the more likely you are to realize the gloomy forecast on the horizon.

I’m not just talking about another difficult road trip to Baltimore this Saturday on a short week, followed by that quick turnaround on Christmas Day for Kansas City. I’m talking about what you may discover about the Steelers.

All I saw was a team that — when playing top-notch competition — couldn’t get its defense off the field, couldn’t get open, couldn’t cover, couldn’t establish a run, and couldn’t always capitalize on the defense’s usual penchant for creating turnovers when the other team has an equally effective defense.

While trying to sift through the rubble of that effort down Interstate 76, attempting to find a golden nugget of hope as to why the Steelers are still a Super Bowl contender, all you are likely to find instead is a lump of coal for your playoff stocking.

Because nothing we witnessed Sunday indicates the Steelers are ready to win three playoff games against top-notch competition when two of those games are potential road trips to Kansas City (13-1) and Buffalo (11-3).

Forget about Philly. This is like doing home renovations. Once you start looking behind the walls, you are just going to find out how much work you are going to need to do.

Isn’t it better just to live in ignorant bliss until the playoffs?

Or at least until the Chiefs leave town after Christmas?

Just focus on Baltimore and hope for the best. Stop trying to look for any oversights for players that ought to be on the “nice list” from the Philadelphia game. Everyone was naughty. They all misbehaved.

And not in the fun, “I had too much holiday cheer” kind of way. For the Steelers on Sunday, it was in the “stiff dose of reality” kind of way.

Let’s hope that, unlike slugging back too much eggnog, the Steelers have no such hangovers Saturday with command of the AFC North at stake in Baltimore.