As it turned out, winning seven out of your last nine games of a season doesn’t necessarily amount to much if you only win two of your first eight. The Pittsburgh Steelers were handed a stark reminder yesterday that every game played on the 17-game schedule counts equally against your win-loss record, and they simply had too many in the right column early on no matter how much that stacked the left as the fall gave way to winter.
For the 15th time in his 16 season, head coach Mike Tomlin had a meaningful week 17 to play, in the sense that they still at least had a chance to make the postseason by the time they kicked off and were not mathematically eliminated.