I want to start out by acknowledging that there are plenty of NFL teams out there that would be more than satisfied with two decades of winning. The Steelers and their fanbase haven’t had a losing season since 2003, back when Bill Cowher was at the helm, and Tommy Maddox was the quarterback. Before that, the last time the Steelers were consistently bad was right before the Chuck Noll era. In 1969, when Noll took over his first season, was the last time in Steelers franchise they had but one win on the season. Since then, the Steelers haven’t had a season with fewer than six.
The Browns in 2017 went winless the entire season, Detroit Lions did the same in 2008. My point being that while Steeler nation has every right to be dissapointed, there is still a lot to be thankful for.
Now I want to talk about the disappointment, and why it’s such a rare kind of disappointment in the NFL.
The Steelers have been, for lack of better term, middle of the pack for quite some time now. The last super bowl win came in 2008. Since then there have been 10 playoff appearances including this past Saturday game against the Ravens. In those ten appearances there have been six wild card losses, two divisional losses, one conference loss and one super bowl loss. Again, it’s great that there have been so many playoff appearances, but it’s been over a decade since they played in a super bowl and close to two decades they won one.
Those stats aren’t even the issue though. The issue is that the Steelers have been in a kind of purgatory in the NFL and it has no signs of changing in the near future. This purgatory is going to keep the Steelers just good enough to have a winning season and just average enough to not make it past the wild card for years to come.
Let me explain. Most teams, like the Browns, get in position that they are bad enough for so many years that they can use their draft picks to replenish their roster and at least give them hope for the years to come. Now, I know the Browns have squandered these opportunities with picks like Johnny Manziel (holy crap that was 2014 I feel old) or running Baker Mayfield out of town, or countless others that were supposed to revitalize the team. However they still have studs like Myles Garrett and Nick Chubb that have made big differences.
So if the Browns aren’t the best example of this let’s look at who is. The Cincinnati Bengals went 2-14 in 2019, in 2020 they drafted Joe Burrow, and while they didn’t make huge strides the next year with the rookie QB going 4-11, they were able to draft Ja’Marr Chase in 2021. The following year the Bengals went to the super bowl. While they lost, and have been having defensive and offensive line struggles since, I would argue that the Bengals were able to take those losing seasons and completely turn their team around into a real threat. Honestly that’s how it should be in the NFL, the Patriots are a prime example. The Bill Belichick era with Tom Brady was pure dominance, since then, they have been garbage. I would think with drafting Drake Maye and some future draft picks they will be on the upswing in the next few years.
The Steelers, however, haven’t been in position to draft a good quarterback for some time. Kenny Pickett was the last first round QB the Steelers have drafted since Ben Roethlisberger back in 2004. The Steelers have needed a new franchise QB since Ben’s departure, but how can they stand a chance if they haven’t had a pick lower than 10 in the past decade. The Steelers have, in fact, not had a draft pick lower than 10 since 2000, when they had the 8th spot and took Plaxico Burress. Since then, the Steelers haven’t had a top 10 draft pick, that’s 25 years. No other team in the NFL in that time has gone without a top 10 pick in the draft.
I understand there are definitely exceptions when drafting a QB, Aaron Rodgers went 20th overall, Lamar Jackson 32nd, and Tom Brady 199th, crazy. However, and especially by today’s NFL standards, franchise quarterbacks are typically gone by the 10th pick. The Steelers could get lucky and draft their next franchise QB late, but right now all they have been doing is buying bandaids for a very serious problem. There is only so much more time they have to spend on an aging defense that seems gassed by the time they get to the playoffs anyway. They need to find a way to score points if they are ever going to be super bowl contenders in the future, and that is going to mean getting low draft picks and rebuilding this team.
I don’t know if that means getting rid of Mike Tomlin and some big contracts on defense but to me that seems to be a good place to start. If the Steelers and their fanbase want to get back to being super bowl contenders in the future, I believe that there needs to be some losing seasons in order to bring in some fresh blood that can take this team beyond mediocre for years to come.
