After being ‘humbled’ before bye, Steelers regroup in 2nd half of season
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Staring at a 2-6 record heading into their bye week, the Pittsburgh Steelers were well on their way to the first losing season since 2003 and, of course, in Mike Tomlin’s 16 years as head coach.
It wasn’t a matter of whether the Steelers would be getting a top-10 pick in the 2023 NFL Draft, but whether they would crack the top five.
Heading into Week 18 — exactly eight games later — the Steelers still could finish with a losing record. That first-round pick, though? It should come in the second half of the draft and could be in the 20s, if the Steelers complete an improbable scenario and reach the NFL playoffs after being given up for dead just a few weeks ago.
Thanks to three consecutive wins — and six in eight games since the break — the Steelers have reached .500 and could be playing beyond the regular season if everything breaks in their favor next weekend.
Nobody could have predicted that after a 35-13 loss at Philadelphia the day before Halloween, right?
“We try not to focus on what other people say about us,” inside linebacker Rob Spillane said after a 16-13 victory at Baltimore on Sunday night, “but in this locker room we’ve always had belief and trust in each other. It’s really showing through.”
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• ‘The kid’s growing before our eyes’ — Another winning drive led by Steelers’ QB Kenny Pickett
The consensus is the Steelers’ turnaround began during the bye week — a period that Tomlin likes to use as self-reflection, in good times and bad.
It happened with the defense, the highest-paid group in the NFL that played the final seven games of the first half without reigning NFL defensive player of the year T.J. Watt because of a pectoral injury.
“We were humbled very quickly, and we had to regroup,” strong safety Terrell Edmunds said. “We had to come together and be real with ourselves at the middle of the season and just say, ‘We weren’t as good as we thought we were,’ at the time.
“Now, everything is clicking for us, we’re all complementing each other, and we’re starting to win some games.”
With rookie quarterback Kenny Pickett trying to find his footing as a starter, Tomlin called on the defense, which he refers to as the “senior group” to support an offense that still hasn’t exceeded 24 points in a win this season.
Aside from a 37-30 loss to Cincinnati, when the Bengals gained 408 yards, the Steelers haven’t permitted more than 310 in any of their second-half games. In the past three weeks, the opponents haven’t broached 250 — or less than half the amount of yards (552) the Buffalo Bills put up in Week 5.
“We’ve been a tight-knit group all the way back to Latrobe,” Watt said. “It was a matter of getting it right. We’ve been practicing hard. With everything we’ve seen in practice, we’re not surprised with what is happening on game day. We’re a young team, we’re practicing hard, guys want to win, we want to perform.
“It was a matter of getting all of our ducks in a row, guys playing sound defense. And what about Kenny P?”
In the second half, Pickett has engineered four game-winning drives and three fourth-quarter comebacks. Since sitting out a win at Carolina with a concussion, Pickett has led last-minute touchdown drives in wins against Las Vegas and Baltimore — the only time the Steelers reached the end zone in either game. Perhaps just as important, Pickett has thrown just one interception since the bye.
“He smiles in the face of it,” Tomlin said. “He’s always ready to be that guy in the moments we need him to be that guy. It’s good to see a young guy march forward.”
Supporting Pickett is a running game that has regrouped behind an offensive line that needed time to find the cohesion so important to the position. And Najee Harris, after a sluggish first half, has benefited while sharing carries with rookie Jaylen Warren. Harris has rushed for 581 yards in the second half, punctuated by an 111-yard performance against Baltimore. Warren chipped in 76, his highest total of the year.
“Look at where we were at before the bye and see where we are at now,” center Mason Cole said. “We knew it was possible. When it’s 2-6 and it seems like the world is caving in on you, these guys never quit. We keep fighting, and we’re still in the hunt.”
That is something that must have seemed unimaginable after that loss to Philadelphia. Just don’t tell that to Edmunds, who nodded when asked whether he thought this turnaround was possible heading into the bye.
“Yes, we were all talking about it,” he said. “We knew our season wasn’t over. We just had to regroup and keep on working, keep our head down. We had to have tunnel vision and worry about nothing else.”