Football Footnotes: Let's pick apart some bogus Steelers myths

There are a number of myths about the Pittsburgh Steelers. We often speak them into reality whether they are true or not. For this Friday’s “Football Footnotes,” let’s deconstruct a few of them.

One in particular got my attention late this season.

• The Steelers are all about running the football and stopping the run!: But, they aren’t. They just gave up 299 yards rushing in a playoff game and finished the regular season at 4.1 yards per carry, 24th in the NFL. They have been in the top 20 of that category once since 2016.

• The Steelers can find a wide receiver whenever and wherever they want!: Well, they didn’t this year, and the receivers that they find usually turn out to be giant pains in the backside. Then, they often have to get rid of them before their contracts expire.

• Nobody wants to see Mike Tomlin and the Steelers in the playoffs!: Actually, I think everybody wants to play the Steelers in the playoffs. They have lost six straight postseason games by an average of 13.6 points.

• The Steelers have a standard of Super Bowl success!: They used to. Now they have a standard of accepting mediocrity, seeing as how they’ve failed to win a playoff game 15 out of the past 19 years.

When these tropes are spewed forth by fans on the internet and talking heads in the national media, that’s one thing.

When the franchise starts to believe the baloney that’s said about itself, though, that’s when it gets dangerous. Given the examples listed above, along with the roster construction and coaching staff alignment of the team, I’d argue those lines have been blurred to a damaging degree.

There is another myth that has been parroted a lot in recent years. It’s been advanced by fans and some media homers as a way to further the narrative as to why never having a losing season for Tomlin is more important than going for it all in any given offseason or putting yourself in a position to burn it down and begin a true rebuild.

It goes a little something like this:

• So long as you are good enough to make the playoffs, you give yourself a chance to win the whole thing!: Eh, no you don’t.

Technically, sure. Of course that’s true. But not really.

Not anymore, anyway. Not with Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson in the playoffs every year in the AFC. Not with Kenny Pickett, Mason Rudolph, Justin Fields/Russell Wilson trying to go through Baltimore, Buffalo and Kansas City three straight weeks on the road every year.

The Steelers haven’t even been able to climb up one of those rungs on the ladder their last three times in the postseason, let alone three in a row. They fell in K.C. in 2021-22, Buffalo last year and Baltimore this year — all in the first round.

The “if you just get into the playoffs, you give yourself a chance” theory was born in Pittsburgh because the club had such good fortune in the 1970s. Yet, back then, only four teams from each conference made it. You essentially walked into the quarterfinals.

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Since the end of the 2020 season, when the playoffs expanded to seven teams in each conference, no No. 7 seed has won a game in the AFC. The only No. 6 seed to win was Cleveland beating the Steelers in Pittsburgh in that first year.

In the four years since then, the top four seeds (with a bye for No. 1) have all advanced out of the first round each time. Deeper in team history, the Steelers have been to eight Super Bowls. Seven times they went as a top-3 seed. Six times, they won the AFC Championship at home.

Yeah, I know. In 1984, Mark Malone and company went to Denver in the divisional round and stunned John Elway and the 13-3 Broncos. But they didn’t get by Dan Marino and the Dolphins the next week, did they?

That season, the 9-7 Steelers won a soft AFC Central. They got the No. 3 seed ahead of a 12-win Seattle Seahawks team and an 11-win L.A. Raiders team. Those AFC West rivals had to play each other in the wild card game as the No. 4 and No. 5 seeds because that was the format at the time.

In 1989, the 9-7 Steelers went to the Astrodome and upset the 9-7 Oilers in the wild card game. Bubby Brister beat Warren Moon. But he didn’t beat Elway in Mile High the next week (thanks, Mark Stock!)

And, please, let’s stop with 2005-06 references. I get it. That was a No. 6 seed that won three games on the road in the playoffs before winning Super Bowl XL.

It was also a Steelers team that had been 15-1 the year before and had a future Hall of Fame quarterback. Ben Roethlisberger and a slew of other important players had endured injuries over a three-game losing streak in the middle part of the season. They were 7-2 before the streak. They were 4-0 after it. They finished 11-5 and missed the AFC North crown on a tie-breaker to Cincinnati.

It was the bones of a team that would go to three Super Bowls over six years. That was an atypical No. 6 seed.

Not to mention — c’mon, let’s be honest — Carson Palmer got hurt on his first throw the first week in Cincy, and Mike Vanderjagt missed that kick the next week in Indianapolis.

Mike Vanderjagt, Colts (2006)

This Colts team started 13-0 & looked like a lock to make the Super Bowl

The Steelers were about to ice the game on the goal line, but a shocking Bettis fumble set up one of the league’s top kickers for a game-winner…

The 46-yarder wasn’t even… pic.twitter.com/LeVrF5OKW4

— Frank Michael Smith (@frankmikesmith) January 22, 2024

I’m not saying that the team got (clears throat) “lucky,” I’m just saying some crazy stuff happened.

If you are counting on the stars aligning like that for (fill in the blank QB) and the boys in black and gold next year to make a Super Bowl run, you might need a better telescope.

The point is that the playoff bracket is built differently than it used to be 50 years ago. The Steelers are built differently than they used to be 20 years ago. And the AFC is built differently than the NFC is right now.

As a result, our excuses for why it’s OK to always finish with nine or 10 wins every year need to change as well.

Or, better yet, how about we just stop making them? How’s that for an idea?