The challenge for the Pittsburgh Steelers was great on Saturday night. Things didn’t get any easier when the Baltimore Ravens started their AFC wild-card playoff game with a 95-yard touchdown drive.
And when the Steelers had fourth and inches, trailing 7-0, head coach Mike Tomlin decided to punt. It was an unfathomable moment.
The Ravens then went on a 13-play, 85-yard drive, with every play being a point, and Derrick Henry scored to give Baltimore a 14-0 lead. Anyone watching at home can then find other Saturday evening plans. The game was practically over.
The Ravens would win 28-14.
Tomlin isn’t the problem with the Steelers. Saying he is also requires believing that the Steelers should have won more than ten games with their roster this season. That’s probably not the case. But Steelers fans’ frustration is justified. That kick wasn’t the reason the Steelers lost, but it epitomized an outdated approach that left many Pittsburgh fans clamoring for change.
Pittsburgh has been good enough to reach the playoffs and hasn’t been close to competitive in the postseason in years. That was the case again on Saturday night, as the Ravens were never really tested. The Steelers end the season having not led a game since December 8. They started 10-3 before collapsing completely. The performance against the Ravens was embarrassing in many ways.
Should the Steelers feel good about this season, when Tomlin got a lot out of a roster without a top-end passing game and made the playoffs when very few predicted it? Or should they ask themselves if the coach who kept them under .500 for 18 straight seasons is really holding the team back?
Steelers blown away by Ravens
Looking at Saturday night’s game, it’s pretty amazing that the Steelers beat the Ravens once this season and had a chance to beat Baltimore for the AFC North crown until late in the season.
Because on Saturday there was never a moment of doubt about who was the better team. The Ravens looked like a real Super Bowl contender and light years ahead of the Steelers. When Baltimore had a 13-play touchdown drive without a single pass, it almost seemed like the Ravens were bored and pushing themselves. According to Amazon’s broadcast, it was the first TD drive in the NFL all season with 13 or more runs and no passes. And the Steelers were helpless to stop it.
The Ravens led 21-0 at halftime. Lamar Jackson had a highlight-reel touchdown pass, buying nearly seven seconds of time before hitting Justice Hill for a 5-yard score. They had defeated the Steelers 308-59. The Ravens had 19 first downs and the Steelers had two. Playoff games aren’t supposed to look like this. Playoff teams shouldn’t look as incompetent as Pittsburgh either.
There was a glimmer of hope in the second half when the Steelers finally made some big plays, including a 30-yard touchdown to Van Jefferson. But immediately afterward, the Ravens went on another scoring spree, easily grabbing a second-and-20 before Henry broke off a 44-yard touchdown run. Henry tied Terrell Davis’ NFL record with his fourth 150-yard rushing game in the playoffs. It was stunning how easily the Ravens moved the ball on the Steelers on that drive, or for that matter most of the game.
When you play this poorly in a playoff game, after losing four in a row to end the regular season without ever having a header in any of those games, touting a ten-win season seems like completely empty. It felt like the Steelers were no closer to a contender than some teams that have a top-10 pick in this year’s NFL Draft.
The hard question is: How can a 10-win team also feel like a rebuilding team in some ways?
What could change the Steelers’ playoff drought?
This isn’t the first time in recent years that the Steelers have been eliminated from a playoff game shortly after kickoff. They have trailed by at least ten points in each of their last six play-off appearances, and by more than twenty on a few occasions.
If what happened Saturday night was an outlier and showed little fight in a one-off playoff game, it might be excusable. If this has been happening over and over again for over a decade, it’s a reason to rightly wonder whether major changes are needed just to try something different.
“[That’s] my story, not this collective’s story,” Tomlin said this week when asked about the Steelers’ playoff drought, which dates back to the end of the 2016 season. “A lot of these guys involved don’t carry those bags. I carry those bags with pleasure. But that’s not something I’m going to project onto the collective.”
There are issues beyond Tomlin’s control. The Steelers haven’t had good quarterback play since Ben Roethlisberger retired, and they’re always too low in the draft to land a top prospect. It would be fair to see if getting a quarterback could change the Steelers and Tomlin’s disappointing trajectory. Tomlin doesn’t have Jackson, or anything even close. It won’t be easy for Pittsburgh to find one either. But Tomlin also needs to be scrutinized as to why his team has looked so bad in the playoffs in many of their recent performances.
If history is any indicator, Tomlin will get more opportunities to get the Steelers back to a point where they feel like legitimate championship contenders. But at some point, Pittsburgh can’t just keep doing the same thing and expect to catch a team like Baltimore. But the loss to the Ravens was more evidence that something needs to change.
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