To say the Steelers had bad luck through the first four weeks of the NFL season would be a bit of an understatement. After being gifted a 2-0 lead on a special teams gaffe that led to a safety three seconds into the season against Tennessee, it was all downhill. Guard David DeCastro inexplicably toppled into the back of Pro Bowl center Maurkice Pouncey’s leg, ending his season. Isaac Redman fumbled in the red zone, and the Steelers did (or did not do) just enough to lose the season-opener and home-opener to a team that went 6-10 the season before.
Next, Pittsburgh visited Cincinnati for Monday Night Football and, despite keeping wide receiver A.J. Green under wraps, both the offensive and defensive flaws were exposed just enough to earn a second straight loss. At 0-2 and with a division loss hanging over their heards, the defense collapsed at home against Chicago, who also took advantage of five Steelers turnovers. A 40-23 loss put the Steelers at 0-3 and they had yet to force a takeaway through three games. Surely the remedy would be a trip across the Atlantic to London, to play the hapless and winless Minnesota Vikings on an international stage.
Nope. Mike Tomlin and his band of misfits fell to 0-4, allowing big passing play connections by backup quarterback Matt Cassel to a less-than-stellar corps of receivers, including Greg Jennings, who ought to be soon eligible for AARP benefits, one would assume. Injuries galore, controversy rampant amongst the coaching staff (here’s lookin’ at you, Todd Haley), unrest in the locker room and clubhouse ping-pong tables, and a slow, aging defense coupled with a mistake-prone offense refusing to sniff the end zone, and this was one ugly 0-4 franchise heading into its bye week.
The veteran leadership decided all of the focus should be on football and improving, so all fun and games on the premises were banned for all players, not just the youngsters. Management went ahead and swung a trade for veteran tackle Levi Brown, a former first-round pick who came from Arizona to join a Swiss cheese-like offensive line desperate for help in any form. But no, the football gods squashed that effort to improve by tearing Brown’s biceps in pre-game warm-ups just prior to Sunday’s Week 6 game at the New York Jets. This latest setback surely would put out any fire this team had rekindled during the bye week break, right?
Two Geno Smith interceptions, four perfect Shaun Suisham field goals, and a Ben Roethlisberger bomb to Emmanuel Sanders later, and the Steelers had their first win of the season. Now, in Week 7, an opportunity to defeat the somewhat mediocre defending Super Bowl-champion Baltimore Ravens (3-3) has Pittsburgh cautiously believing that with a victory, they might just be able to crawl back into the race for the AFC North. That race is just another Cincinnati Bengals letdown from being extremely tight, is it not? Many are not as optimistic and, trust me, I am not putting any money on this Steelers squad just yet, but…despite the undeniably awful results of the first month of this NFL season for Pittsburghers everywhere, there still remains a small window of opportunity for the black and gold to get themselves in position to at least sniff a chance at competing for an unusually pedestrian AFC North.
As Roethlisberger said after Sunday’s victory, Tomlin has his team looking at each season broken down into four quarters, four games at a time. Clearly, the first quarter of the season was an enormous failure. The second quarter started with a victory, and now presents a home game against a division rival, followed by two road games in Oakland and New England. Oakland, even with their troubles in recent years, has been a tough place for Pittsburgh to win and, well, New England is New England. This will not be easy, for sure. Supporters of the Steelers far and wide have to hold onto the hope that all of that bad luck in the first month has run out its welcome, and that better fortunes will snowball moving further into October.
