When you’re well-known for a credo like ‘the standard is the standard’—when you believe in it so thoroughly that you put it up in steel letters on the wall of your training facility—you damn well better be prepared to be held to a certain standard
That’s the challenge the Pittsburgh Steelers set out for themselves, year in and year out, and while they are the first to say that any season that doesn’t end in them hoisting the Lombardi Trophy is a failure, their own standards also foster unrealistic expectations from the outside, and perennial talk of this or that coach or front office executive being on the hot seat.