Which way? Mike Tomlin's Steelers teams often go on late-season runs — good and bad

In pro golf parlance, Saturday is “moving day,” the penultimate day of a tournament when players try to improve their standing to make a run at the title in the final round.

For the Steelers, this time of year is similar. Particularly under Mike Tomlin, the stretch between mid-November and mid-December typically has played a major role in defining the vast majority of the past 17 seasons.

Since Tomlin was hired in 2007, the Steelers have had a tendency to either salvage a foundering season by triggering a late run or have undergone some degree of a collapse to sully what had the appearance of a successful campaign.

On seven occasions under Tomlin, the Steelers have started runs that included a winning streak and/or stretch of at least six wins in eight games at some point between Week 10 and Week 13.

But Tomlin also has presided over six seasons that went the other way: Steelers teams with winning records have, between Weeks 10 and 13, started streaks of three straight losses or started skids of 1-3, 1-4 or 1-5. During four of those instances, the Steelers went from playoff position to missing the postseason.

This is all relevant to these 2024 Steelers, who, after 11 weeks, sat at 8-2 and held a 1 1/2-game lead in the AFC North.

That was until Thursday night’s 24-19 defeat at the Cleveland Browns.

A solitary loss, in the big picture, might not define the season, particularly one on a short week to a division rival in a snowstorm. Chalk it up as “stuff happens,” right?

Maybe, but the defending Super Bowl champion Steelers of 2009 probably were telling themselves that when, at 6-2, they lost a divisional home game to the Cincinnati Bengals.

It was the start of the five-game losing streak, and the Steelers missed the playoffs.

Or what about three years later? The Steelers were riding high on a four-game winning streak when, during Week 11, another AFC North foe, the Baltimore Ravens, won at Heinz Field.

It was the start of a stretch of five losses in six games, again costing the Steelers a playoff berth.

The 2018 Steelers were 7-2-1 and, on Thanksgiving weekend, lost in Denver to begin a three-game slide that kept them home in January.

Stumbles late in the 2007, 2019 and 2020 seasons also screeched the brakes on encouraging seasons of varying degrees.

Can these Steelers — winners of five straight before Thursday — avoid a similar fate? They insist so.

“We have a lot of football left. We have a lot of opportunities to respond in the highest way, highest level,” quarterback Russell Wilson said. “Everything that we want is still in front of us. We have to be able to refresh after this weekend. After these Thursday night games, just played a tough game on Sunday and you come back and have another game Thursday night, it’s a lot of games in a short amount of days. We have to let our bodies recover, reset mentally, and then come back and push for the stretch.”

Tomlin gave the Steelers a four-day respite from practice. But he has no way of offering relief from the gauntlet of games that awaits. Three of the remaining six opponents are among the five biggest favorites to win the Super Bowl (per FanDuel betting odds): the Kansas City Chiefs, Ravens and Philadelphia Eagles. Another is against the team that just beat them, the Browns. And the remaining two are against one of the NFL’s best offenses — and best quarterbacks — Joe Burrow and the rival Bengals.

When the schedule was released in the spring, it had been anticipated that the Steelers’ late-season run would be a challenge.

“That’s the great part of it: We have the guys to do it,” Wilson said. “We have the mentality to do it. We have the edge to do it. We have the response to do it.”

These Steelers have proven their worthiness as contenders. They are 5-0 against teams sitting in playoff positions. That means just as much as questionable defeats to the likes of the Indianapolis Colts (5-6), Dallas Cowboys (3-7) or Browns (3-8).

Longtime captain Cameron Heyward said Thursday’s loss won’t affect the team’s focus or preparation.

“If you’re not learning from your wins and you’re only learning from your losses, shame on you,” Heyward said. “You can be humbled in every game. You try to learn something in every game.”

The same can be said for seasons. And as much as the collapses of 2009 or 2018 or, say, 2020 (when the 11-0 Steelers lost five of their final six) can trigger fear among fans that the Browns loss portends another late-season swoon, the Steelers under Tomlin also have more than a half-dozen cases in which they turned things around down the stretch.

Then there’s the Steelers of 2011 and 2017, who were cruising by the time they reached Thanksgiving and kept riding that wave through the end of their regular seasons (finishing 12-4 and 13-3, respectively).

“Any game, you’ve gotta have short-term memory,” outside linebacker Nick Herbig said. “Regardless of who it is, win or loss.”

The Steelers vow that when they return to practice Tuesday that the discomforting loss in Cleveland will be well behind them.

“I love this football team,” Wilson said. “(These are) the right guys, the right energy. This is the right response. We are disappointed, but we’re not discouraged. We’re not flinching in the midst of it. We’ll respond the right way.”