1-4, 3-2, 3-2.
That’s the record of the black and gold the last three seasons after five games. Three seasons that all were expected to get off to much better starts, but were derailed by a variety of reasons.
Two of those three seasons the team made the playoffs, but better starts would have improved their position in the postseason. In 2014 the team played a home wild card game, only to lose to the Ravens, while in 2015 they survived a crazy wild card win in Cincy but then lost a game they could have won in the divisional round on the road in Denver.
There’s too much talent on each side of the ball for this team to be trying to crawl over the .500 mark after the first month of the season, and the window for this team to win and bring home another trophy is now.
The first five games of 2016 features three playoff teams, one team that was a game away from making it (New York Jets) and another that hung around in the division till mid-December in the Philadelphia Eagles.
If your are big into NFL betting online you probably have already seen the Steelers are road favorites in week one, a game on the road against the Redskins, who won the NFC East last season, only to lose in the wild card game against the Packers.
This is the perfect type of ‘letdown’ game the Steelers usually have early in the season. Washington will be pumped to play at home in a prime time setting, and the Steelers without Le’Veon Bell can’t fall into the trap of a year ago when they were beat in the Thursday prime time opener by the Pats.
While Washington is nowhere near as good as New England, the Steelers can’t just throw their helmets on the field and assume they can walk out of D.C. with an easy win.
Then in week two it’s the Bengals at home, in a game where the team that plays with more displicine will be the team that walks off the field with a win.
The Steelers have a bad tendency of playing poorly at home to the Bengals, like last season when they had the undefeated Bengals on the ropes, leading it 10-6, but in the end allowed 10 fourth quarter points after some bonehead plays to lose.
After the playoff game last season, Cincy will want blood, but the Steelers can’t fall into their trap of playing dumb football and committing bad penalties.
Let’s hope the team stays within themselves, and earns a big divisional home win.
Week three sees a road game at Philadelphia, where they play an Eagles team that has a new coach (Doug Pederson) and possibly a new QB in Carson Wentz.
This early in the year it still may be Sam Bradford, a QB that is very close to being on NFL life support. He wants out of Philly, and for good reason, they could be a mess of a team, a team that the Steelers even on the road should beat.
The following week is a prime time game against the Chiefs, another playoff team from 2015. At home prime time usually does the Steelers well, and here’s thinking they should have a good shot against Kansas City to earn a week four win.
Finally it’s week five, and hopefully instead of staring at 2-2 or even worse – 1-3, this team will play up to their potential and be either 3-1 or better yet, 4-0.
The week five game is a matchup with the Jets, a team the Steelers needed to lose in week 17 last season to make it to the postseason after their road win against the Browns.
Rex Ryan and the Bills helped out the Steelers with a win, and the Jets were out while the Steelers were in the postseason.
The game should come down to getting pressure on Jets QB Ryan Fitzpatrick, as well as keeping Big Ben upright. If the Steelers do that, they should be able to earn a win at home against the Jets.
It’s a critical year for this franchise, one that’s already seen two offensive playmakers get hit with suspensions, but one that also still has plenty of promise.
Winning games early in the season is a major key for Mike Tomlin and this club, let’s hope they get the message that winning more games early in the season sets up for the chance of more home games in January.
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DrGeorge
August 18, 2016 at 1:04 pm
Pollyanna is a best-selling 1913 children’s novel by Eleanor H. Porter, best remembered for its excessive optimism. Matt must have had a copy in hand when he wrote: “There’s too much talent on each side of the ball for this team to be trying to crawl over the .500 mark after the first month of the season… .”
Alas, the NFL is not a Pollyanna world. In reality, the Steelers have too much talent on one side of the ball and too little on the other for them not to be struggling to stay at .500 after the first month of the season. The whole season will be one long struggle.
The first five games are not that daunting — Redskins, Bengals, Eagles, Chiefs, and Jets. If we aren’t at least 3-2 after those five games, things will look bleak indeed, for we will be lucky to go 6-5 over the next eleven games. In truth, our defense is mediocre, and if anything happens to Ben R., even for few games, our offense will become mediocre, too. Then we will all be reading Pollyanna, in search of a ray of hope.
Stephen
August 18, 2016 at 11:39 pm
If we are to be a successful playoff team,this season, then a new reliable back up must be there for Big Ben. He can only take so many hits and game wear and tear before he wears down. I’m all for a decent passer, make a trade for a veteran who can run an offense and get the ball down the field and finish with touchdowns, not turnovers. What’s sad is that we are still in preseason, we don’t have offensive unity, passion or consistency. Pitt needs a quality new back up plan and simple. And coaches, if you don’t get him soon, forget about winning the division or even making the playoffs. I won’t go near the super bow at all, until we have a second quarterback that can do the job well and lead. I have a real desire to see another super bowl win before Ben retires. And I’m sure all of Steeler nation feels the same.
DrGeorge
August 19, 2016 at 11:10 am
This morning, everyone is talking about the struggles of Landry Jones (four interceptions in one half!) and Dustin Vaughan in last night’s preseason game. They appeared to make a case for Colbert to begin looking for a veteran backup to Ben R. But, in truth, Jones and Vaughan don’t deserve all of the blame. They played most of the night with inexperienced receivers who ran the wrong routes or poor routes, didn’t separate, and dropped passes, and Sammie Coates, who should have been a beacon of hope, played like a rookie. Tucker, Rogers, and Ayers distinguished themselves, which must be some consolation. And the running game clicked at times. So it wasn’t all bad news. And as we all know, the offense is usually behind the defense in preseason. Everyone believes all this ineptitude will go away when the first string plays. I’m not sure about that. But we can hope.
What no one is talking about is our defense, which the pundits seem to think played well. I’m not so sure about that either. Most of the first half, it was our first string defense against the Eagles second string offense. Our defense should have shut them down. It didn’t. And our secondary struggled all night.
While there were strong individual efforts on both sides of the ball, I saw nothing last night to negate the views Stephen and I expressed above. This season is already shaping up to be a long, arduous grind.
Jay
August 20, 2016 at 9:36 am
One of many seeming (bottom) lines that no one is talking about is the historical culture of this team. This team was built in the 70’s on defensive talent; perhaps they were faster than their contemporaries, but they were by and large built to stop the run and get after the quarterback. Getting into a progressive, pass first, fast guy defensive back oriented type of league was something that this team always neglected; Rod Woodson seeming out of place as a first round corner taken in the late 80’s. Hell, Noll took an INTERIOR defensive lineman over Marino in the early 80’s! I think the league’s change to faster, more athletic defenses has, quite frankly, befuddled this organization to a degree. They seem to be caught trying to continue to build the front seven first, WHILE AT THE SAME TIME taking players who have more on the combine measurable side than tape…or some facsimile combination thereof. Dr. George is right, WE CONTINUE TO HEAR THE NONSENSE FROM TUNCH AND WOLF AND THE OTHERS ON SNR ABOUT HOW GOOD EVERYONE LOOKS AND I’M SICK OF IT!!!!! it’s agenda setting, propaganda…I get it has to be done to a degree but it is ridiculous that it is done to the degree that it is done. I listen to those guys and you wold think that there’s hall of famers EVERYWHERE out there on defense!!!!! IT’S COMPLETELY AMAZING THE DIAMETRIC OPPOSITION BETWEEN THE TWO ENDS OF THE STATE in every way imaginable. The Philadelphia media jumps WAY, WAY too much on their teams’ shit and need to tone it back BUT, BUT the pittsburgh media issues WAY WAY too much of a pass to their teams and need to turn the heat on a little. No one deserves to be derided for lack of a super bowl the way the Eagles are and no one deserves to be issued a pass for six of them the way the Steelers are. Tomlin, oh, this wonderful head coach, ALWAYS, ALWAYS seems to have some shit happen before a season starts whether it’s his fault, directly, indirectly or, not even at all….The fact remains, whether you want to ignorantly point the finger at him for stuff that is NOT his fault or rightfully so for the stuff that is….The fact remains that EVERY YEAR at this time, ON HIS WATCH, some shit happens, EVERY YEAR!!!!! And shit happens continually (suspensions, multiple suspensions, injuries to key players because they shouldn’t have been playing in preseason, the latest being they signed some guy who has concussion issues—-allegedly)…It’s so ridiculous that you can set your watch to it..And, I’m pissed because all this team had to do was show up with this offense (Bell for 16 games, Martavis for 16 games and son and so on) and all the pass defense had to do was just jump up maybe six or seven spots from 30 to maybe the early 20’s and you could realistically, if there were no injuries, pencil them in for early February. But no, this person gets suspended, that person now can’t play, this person….It’s just sickening…then we have to listen to Tunch and Wolf talk like they’re SOOOOOO improved in all these areas when they made a suck cornerback named nolan carroll look like Lester Hayes. Please someone tell me I’m wrong here because that is what it seems like to me… every year (this year more than any other in recent memory) we’re supposed to do great things, and every year under Tomlin’s watch, some weird preventable shit happens!
DrGeorge
August 22, 2016 at 1:50 pm
It has been reported that Dustin Vaughan has a broken thumb. This on top of Gradkowski’s ham string. Now, we’re down to L. Jones, and I do mean down. Remember my earlier comment about our precarious situation at QB? It just got worse. I do believe Colbert will soon be shopping for a veteran QB — and a bottle of aspirin.
By the way, in the 2016 draft, we could have picked up: Connor Cook, Dak Prescott, or Cardale Jones in Round 4, Kevin Hogan in Round 5, or Nate Sudfeld in Round 6. Take your pick of any one of these versus L. Jones. Tough decision.