The Steelers are technically tied for first in the AFC North right now, but anybody can clearly see they’re not where they want to be. They are, after all, sitting at 6-6, a .500 record now into December, which is never good. Sure, in theory, they could finish the regular season 11-6, and it would look good on paper. That was what most people predicted as their ceiling, if even that high.
But this is a team that is approaching free fall and has felt that way in multiple games. In some of their recent losses, it certainly felt as though the Steelers allowed issues to snowball, and they allowed their opponents to steamroll them. That’s not Steelers football—at least, that’s not what it used to be. And former NFL DL Marcus Spears knows who to blame.
“The Pittsburgh Steelers are exactly where they deserve to be”, he said on ESPN’s NFL Live. “This was a team with no plan after Ben Roethlisberger. They’ve been waffling the last seven years in the NFL. And we all know the truth. We all know the truth. They put all their chips into Aaron Rodgers and thought this particular year he was going to be able to max out as a 40-year-old quarterback and hopefully make it to the playoffs”.
Now, it’s worth noting that you can’t just find a franchise quarterback. There are no guarantees in the quarterback derby, even with the first pick in the first round. The closest things to sure things lately have been Joe Burrow and Andrew Luck, and, well, Luck is coaching now. Burrow’s pretty good, but even he can’t win without a defense. And the Steelers don’t have an offense they can win with half the time this year.
“They are in a division where it’s ripe for the taking, and they are still not what they need to be”, Spears said of the Steelers. “It’s a retooling that needs to take place in Pittsburgh—that’s it. It’s that simple. The team cannot go in any direction until you get the most important position right. That’s where they sit, and they’ve been sitting there for a long time”.
It’s hard to believe that around this time last year, the Steelers were 10-3. But like the 2020 season when they started 11-0, everyone knew they weren’t looking at the real deal. They fell apart at the end of both of those seasons.
Even this year, the Steelers began the season 4-1, but since then, they have gone 2-5. And they have had some pretty spectacular losses, all things being considered. The Steelers went into this season believing they had a historic defense. They were right, but for the wrong reasons, as it turns out.
