The old cliche in football, at least at the professional level, is that you want to be hitting your stride and playing your best overall football late in the season, hopefully leading to a run through the playoff bracket.
While the Pittsburgh Steelers ultimately didn’t make the playoffs this season, they closed the season in rather impressive fashion, going 7-2 down the stretch to finish 9-8, looking like one of the better teams in the league late in the season. Granted, some of those wins came against poor teams overall, but you can only control what’s in front of you on a week by week basis, and that’s exactly what the Steelers did.