Pictured: all of Steeler Nation yelling at Aaron Rodgers after he threw three consecutive passes to Marquez Valdes-Scantling with the game (and possibly season) on the line

Well, this weekend sucked. There were two ways that the Steelers could wrap up the AFC North with a week left in the regular season: the Packers could beat the Ravens at Lambeau Field on Saturday night, or the Steelers could beat the 3-12 Cleveland Browns Sunday afternoon in one of the most disgusting cities on earth (Cleveland, Ohio). 

Neither of those results occurred. The Ravens brushed aside an ailing Green Bay team, thanks in no small part to Derrick Henry’s four touchdowns. After letting multiple leads go by the wayside due to his team abandoning the run, John Harbaugh finally remembered that he had a hall of fame running back on his roster, giving Henry a career-high 36 carries that he would turn into 216 yards. 

With the Packers failing to help the Steelers out, it was up to Pittsburgh to take care of business against the Browns on the road, at a stadium in which they had only recorded one win since 2018. They entered the game as 3.5-point favorites (per DraftKings SportsBook), as oddsmakers expected the 9-6 Steelers to handle the 3-12 Browns and win the division. 

Little did they know that yesterday’s contest was what we in Pittsburgh call a “Tomlin special”. The Steelers were only able to muster six points against the Browns in an absolutely dismal offensive performance, falling to Cleveland in a 13-6 final. 

As a result of that loss, the Steelers are now 0-4-1 in their last five games against teams that enter games with at least eight more losses than wins (per Doug Clawson of CBS Sports). Those results follow below:

• Loss in 2020 against the 2-10-1 Bengals
• Tie in 2021 against the 0-8 Lions
• Back-to-back losses in 2023 against the 2-10 Cardinals and 2-10 Patriots
• Loss yesterday against the 3-12 Browns

If you cannot win games against bad teams, how do you expect to compete? The more striking detail about this statistic is that, to be eight-plus games below .500, these contests have to take place in the second half of the season. Ergo, the Steelers failing to win these games entails that they are not winning important late-season games against poor opposition. 

Now, yesterday’s loss is not necessarily one I would put on Tomlin’s shoulders, although this guy outside Mike’s house this morning would beg to differ. 

Yesterday’s failures were almost exclusively on the offense and Arthur Smith’s horrific play-calling. In the last two games, the Steelers are 0-5 inside the 20-yard line in scoring touchdowns, despite being as high as third-best in red zone scoring this season (per Alex Kozora of Steelers Depot). In week 17, they did not find the end zone once, including on their final drive of the game, where the last three plays were all throws in the direction of Marquez Valdes-Scantling. MVS ran the wrong routes on second- and third-down, and was (likely) interfered with on the last play. 

Why are you throwing to the guy with the worst hands on the team with the game on the line, especially three times in a row? Why are you throwing to the guy that has the Browns’ best corner covering him? What did you think the result of that series would be???

That series was just a microcosm of the entire offense. Despite the team averaging 5.5 yards per carry on the ground, they still elected to throw the ball 39 times. It seems to me that, if you are ripping off 5-6 yards every run (on average), it would behoove you to stick with that, rather than allow the Browns’ pass rush to affect you (in case you did not hear it 80 times on the broadcast, Browns’ edge rusher Myles Garrett was going for the single-season sack record yesterday, something of which the Steelers appeared to be quite cognizant). 

Garrett knew that the Steelers did not want him to break the record. After the game, he said, “To an extent, they were more worried about keeping me away from Aaron [Rodgers] than getting the win. That’s what came back to bite them.”

In a way, he is correct, although allowing sacks is detrimental to an offense’s performance anyways. However, it would seem that the optimal way to neutralize Garrett would be to stick with what was an effective running game, something that Arthur Smith failed to do. 

The Steelers lost Darnell Washington indefinitely with a broken arm during the game. They will still be without DK Metcalf for week 18, as he serves the second half of his two-game suspension for his altercation with the moronic Lions fan. They may still be without Calvin Austin III, too, as he missed this game due to injury. These three pass-catchers’ absences loom large in advance of a win-or-go-home game against the Ravens on Sunday night. 

I never root against the Steelers—it is not in my nature. However, being slaughtered by Baltimore on national television in an elimination game when you, just days ago, had a 93% chance of winning the division, would certainly force management’s hand into potentially making significant changes. 

The most disappointing part of the game was that the result was very unsurprising. So many people expected the Steelers to lay an egg, and they did just that. We will see what they do against the Ravens in six days time, but my expectations are extremely low.