2024 just the latest in a long string of late-season Steelers collapses under Mike Tomlin

During the annual holiday season, the Pittsburgh Steelers under Mike Tomlin far too often have been in quite the giving mood.

As in, giving back leads in the AFC North race.

Giving up ground in the conference standings.

Giving away higher playoff seedings.

Even giving up what appeared to be all-but-sewed-up playoff berths.

Reeling after a three-game December losing streak? It’s a familiar feeling in Pittsburgh. A trio of recent defeats over an 11-day span not only threatens to sabotage what was looking like a highly promising season, it’s conjuring up bad memories of December collapses in recent seasons.

For the fifth time over the past seven seasons, the Steelers have a three-game losing streak that started sometime after Week 12. Three times earlier in the Tomlin tenure that began in 2007, a similar late swoon helped crater a season that appeared on track for something much more memorable.

Here’s a look back at seven instances that range somewhere on a spectrum from “slump/course-correction” to “utter disastrous collapse” for the Steelers over the past 18 years:

2007

Tomlin’s first team shot out of the gates to starts of 7-2 and 9-3. Though they never were going to catch the historic New England Patriots of that season (who ended up 16-0), a first-round bye via the No. 2 seed was well within play.

Instead, the Steelers lost four of the final five they played, including the postseason, when their fall to the No. 4 seed meant a matchup with an ascending Jacksonville team that had beaten them three weeks prior.

Three of the four defeats, including one to those world-beating Patriots, came to playoff teams, and the fourth was when the Steelers were resting starters in a meaningless finale. As far as “collapses” go, this was mild. But it did foreshadow more.

2009

Fresh off their second Super Bowl win in four years, these Steelers were riding high at 6-2 at the season’s midpoint. An almost unfathomable five-game losing streak followed.

Only one of the opponents in that five-game stretch had a winning record, and three were among the NFL’s worst teams that season: the Kansas City Chiefs came into their game against the Steelers at 2-7, the Oakland Raiders were 3-8 and the Cleveland Browns 1-11.

Though the Steelers rallied by winning their final three (all against contending teams), by then it was too little, too late. The damage had been done. There would be no chance at a Super Bowl repeat.

2012

The 2009 team was the lone unit among Tomlin’s first five seasons that sat out the postseason. The 2012 Steelers appeared poised to make it five of six in the playoffs after a Week 10 win against the Chiefs improved them to 6-3 and extended their winning streak to four.

But an injury to Ben Roethlisberger began a slide that ended up with five losses in six games, the final three even with Big Ben in the lineup.

The Steelers avoided a losing season with a Week 17 home win against the 5-10 Browns that, to this day, remains the only game Tomlin has coached in which the Steelers kicked off already eliminated from postseason contention.

2018

This season began with the star running back staying away because of contract dispute, and it ended with the superstar wide receiver on a de facto team suspension.

In between all the drama surrounding Le’Veon Bell and Antonio Brown, the Steelers got off to a 7-2-1 start that created a 2 1/2-game division lead with six games to play. Few could have foreseen a three-game losing streak and a stretch of four losses in five games that, strangely, included a rare win over the Tom Brady/Bill Belichick Patriots.

A hard-fought 31-28 Week 16 loss at the Super Bowl-contending New Orleans Saints ended up the death knell. After beating the Bengals in the finale, players remained on the Heinz Field grass to watch the end of the Ravens-Browns game on the big screen. Cleveland, though, couldn’t muster an upset, and the Ravens won the AFC North while the Steelers stayed home for the playoffs.

2019

Truth be told, these Steelers probably overachieved to get to 8-5 after a 1-4 start and season-ending injury to Roethlisberger that compelled training-camp QB4 Devlin “Duck” Hodges to start six games.

Still, seven wins over an eight-game stretch left the Steelers with everything they wanted out in front of them when they headed into the final three-week stretch. A victory in just one of those three games would have gotten the Steelers into the postseason. Instead, they scored exactly 10 points in each and stayed home in January.

2020

The starkest collapse of them all, the Steelers adapted to the odd circumstances of the “covid season” by improving to 11-0 with a repeatedly postponed Wednesday afternoon win against Baltimore on Dec. 2. Five days later, a 23-17 home loss to an ordinary Washington Football Team began a spiral that dropped the Steelers from legitimate chatter of entering the realm of one of the best NFL team seasons of all time to scratching and clawing just to win the division.

The Steelers lost three consecutive and four of five to close out the regular season. The ultimate indignity, though, was the “little brother” Browns stomping them in Heinz Field for what remains that franchise’s lone playoff win over the past three decades. By the time Cleveland had a 28-0 lead less than 14 minutes in, that “perfect season” chatter was a laughably distant memory.

2023

Last year’s Steelers get full credit for successfully pulling out of their late-season tailspin, albeit one that still ended with a one-and-done postseason. And it took a switch at quarterback, as third-stringer Mason Rudolph saved the season after Kenny Pickett and Mitch Trubisky combined to upend a season that started out with six victories in nine games to one that was almost torpedoed by two home defeats over a five-day span to teams that came in with 2-10 records (Arizona and New England).

The low point came the following week in a 30-13 shellacking at Indianapolis, a team the Steelers were competing with for a playoff spot. Kudos to the Steelers, though, for winning their next three to earn the AFC’s final postseason berth.

2024

The 12 days that led into this Christmas dropped the Steelers from contention for the No. 1 or No. 2 seed in the AFC playoffs all the way down to where a No. 6 or No. 7 seed is very much in play. A division title that the Steelers had a chance to wrap up a week ago now is highly unlikely to materialize.

The Steelers sat at 10-3 and with seven wins in eight outings when they traveled to Philadelphia for the Dec. 15 game they would lose by two touchdowns. Six days later, not only did they not clinch the AFC North in Baltimore, they buoyed the Ravens into control of the division with a 34-17 beatdown. Then came Wednesday’s 29-10 humiliation at the hands of the Chiefs on Christmas Day.

Luckily for these Steelers, the playoffs are assured. But so is another in a long line of Decembers no one wants to remember.