By the standards of most franchises, the Pittsburgh Steelers have been on a decent four-year run. From 2011-14, they’ve gone 39-25 in the regular season, made the playoffs twice and won the AFC North once. But by the standards of this proud organization, four years without getting past the first round of the postseason seems like a dry spell. As the Steelers get set to open the NFL season tonight in Foxboro against the Patriots, what are the prospects for 2015?
All of those things are true, but there’s one very important factor not to overlook—the Steeler offensive line has come together after a couple years of mediocrity and become a genuinely sound unit.
My approach was conservative. I took whatever I felt would be the chalk pick in a game–if the teams seemed fairly even, I just deferred to the home team and I didn’t pick any upsets. Here’s how the results came out..
The Pittsburgh Steelers are quietly picking up some momentum in the race for either the AFC’s final wild-card berth or the AFC North title itself, two races defined by mediocrity. Since losing their first four games of the 2013 season, Mike Tomlin’s Steelers have righted the ship and won four of the last six. They’re one game back in a packed race for the second wild-card, two back in the division and plenty of opportunities on the schedule in the final six weeks.
The AFC North I was expecting to see all year long showed up in a big way on Sunday. This division has been better than I expected—I thought 9-7 would win it, and there wouldn’t be any wild-card teams. As it stands, it will likely be double-digit wins to take first place and in all likelihood the final wild-card spot comes from this division. But Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati all managed to come up small in big situations.