Tim Benz: Steelers’ win over Broncos wasn’t a swing game, but a win over Seahawks could be
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If the phrase has been used once about the Pittsburgh Steelers’ victory over the Denver Broncos Sunday, it’s been used one thousand times.
It was a “swing game”!
Nah. It wasn’t.
But if it makes Steeler Nation enthused, reinvigorated and reinvested in what appeared to be a lifeless 2021 season, who am I to rain on anyone’s parade?
Maybe if Pittsburgh football fans truly are rejuvenated following that win Sunday, we’ll see fewer than 9,000-10,000 empty seats under pristine weather conditions as we’ve witnessed the last two games at Heinz Field.
Buy into that belief that the Steelers won a “swing game” over the Broncos if you like. Just allow me to advance a slightly different theory: The swing game is actually this week against the Seattle Seahawks.
And it started swinging last Thursday when Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson busted his finger during a loss to the Los Angeles Rams.
I looked at that victory over Denver, and I didn’t see the Steelers swinging their season back in the right direction. I just saw them stopping the bleeding. I saw them preventing a death spiral. I saw them pulling over to the side of the road just before driving off a cliff.
Especially after watching that Broncos club for four quarters. It became abundantly clear that Denver is much closer to the team that got outclassed by Baltimore 23-7 in Week 4, instead of the one that began the year 3-0 against a schedule that featured vanquished opponents (the Jets, Jaguars and Giants) currently at a collective 2-13.
Grabbing a win over Denver at Heinz Field was one the Steelers had to have to avoid a complete meltdown. It was one most assumed before the season. It was one many in Pittsburgh talked themselves into picking before kickoff despite the team’s three-game losing streak.
If the Steelers had lost, the only question would’ve been, “How bad can it possibly get?” Instead, many of us are suddenly asking, “How quickly can the Steelers get back into contention?”
I think I can answer that one. November 14. That’s when.
Don’t be surprised if the Steelers leave Heinz Field that Sunday afternoon solidly in wild card contention at 5-4, having just beaten the currently winless Detroit Lions.
On the Monday after the loss in Green Bay, at 1-3, every Steelers fan in Western Pennsylvania would have signed up for that. The game that makes such a climb out of the doldrums feasible is a potential win over the Seahawks Sunday.
It’s an outcome that was possible prior to Seattle’s loss of Wilson. Now it’s an outcome that is well within reach because backup Geno Smith is quarterbacking.
Just don’t tell Mike Tomlin that.
“He’s got some understanding of how that system of football is built,” Tomlin said of Smith. “He’s 31 years old. He’s been in this league a long time. I’d imagine he is in place there because he gives them an opportunity to function in a very similar manner — at least schematically — in terms of their personality.”
Fair enough. Smith did look capable in relief against the Los Angeles Rams Thursday night. He does have two excellent receiving weapons in Tyler Lockett and DK Metcalf as help. Plus, as Tomlin pointed out, the offense doesn’t change much functionally with him under center.
Once the ball is snapped, how that offensive functionality actually — um — functions with Smith instead of Wilson is a different question.
It’s also a question if Seattle’s struggling defense will be enough of a deterrent to slow a Steelers offense that has begun taking baby steps in the right direction each of the past two games. The Seahawks are last in the league in total yards allowed (450.8), 30th in pass yards per game (305.6) and 31st in rush yards per game (145.2).
If Wilson isn’t at quarterback to help the offense keep up with what the opposition gets against his own team’s defense, it could be a long day for Seattle. Even if that opposing offense is the usually anemic one wearing Black and Gold.
When the schedule came out, if I was squinting hard enough, I could vaguely see a Steelers win over Seattle. Now it is staring me right in the face — even if this 2021 version of the Steelers franchise is diluted compared to what we are used to watching.
After the loss in Green Bay, I felt like even if the Steelers did scrape by Denver, Wilson would be throwing bombs over their heads and the Cleveland Browns would be running the ball down their throat two weeks later after the bye. Therefore, whatever good that would’ve been built up by the Denver game would’ve been washed away before an apparent chance to rebound against the Chicago Bears and Lions at home.
I was even thinking 1-6 for the first time since 1988 was a possibility, with players emotionally checking out and failing to buy into the coaching they were getting.
Or, for that matter, coaches perhaps no longer buying into what their players could do.
“That wasn’t — and is not — our focus,” Tomlin said Tuesday. “I proceed with the assumption that there is buy-in, because that is what we build culturally, and those are our values.”
Luckily for Tomlin, he’ll never have to find out how bad things could’ve gotten if that game against Denver went the other way. But he’ll need a win over Seattle to return to .500 and truly return to respectability.
That’s the kind of swing Tomlin and his players need. Fortunately for them, it may have started in their direction last Thursday night.