Sad News: Pittsburgh Steelers Best player repeated the same mistake again….

For those like myself, a Steelers fan, you’ve probably spent the last day or so frustrated by yet another one-and-done playoff bounce.

They were a 10-point underdog, playing on the road at a legit Super Bowl contender (which clearly the Steelers just are not any more). They needed an out-of-nowhere resurgence of the once forgotten Mason Rudolph to even stay alive. And, they still needed some help on the final day of the regular season just to make the playoffs.

Despite all of that, I did what I do every year — let myself believe.

That belief was largely due to Rudolph, who is clearly the best quarterback that’s been on the roster the last two years but for some reason was a desperate last resort.

When the score read 21-0 Buffalo on Monday evening the belief quickly disappeared. It came back when it was a one-score game for a brief moment but was quickly zapped back away.

The easy thing to do in this frustrating time is to write about Mike Tomlin and whether or not he should return. The reality is, regardless of what anyone thinks, he’s going to be the Steelers head coach as long as he wants to be, so arguing about it either way is like a Peterman Catalog — pointless drivel.

That’s not to absolve him of any criticism, fair or not he’s the head coach. The first thing that jumps out about Monday and the most frustrating part of the playoff struggles is that the 21-0 hole was easily predictable.

The last five Steelers playoff games, spanning across different personnel on both sides of the ball and assistant coaches, they have been outscored 66-0 in the first quarter. Yes, 66-0. Like Monday, they’ve attempted to come back in a few of those games, but that’s a big hole every single time.

That is a clear pattern of not being ready or prepared when the biggest game of the year begins.

Every high school coach I’ve ever talked to who’s team got off to a bad start in any sport from the most tenured veterans to the first-time, first-year coaches has said to me that the lack of preparation or not having a team ready to go is on them. So, ultimately, those horrible starts are on Mike Tomlin. He’s the biggest common denominator.

But, again, the point of this is not to focus on him. The Steelers problems, while arguably all in some way involving Tomlin, are far beyond him.

Let’s start with the most obvious one. The quarterback situation has been handled awfully. It should not have taken until the end of the season when all was all-but lost to figure out the guy who was in street clothes for much of the past two seasons was actually the best of the bunch.

The crossover part of the fan base that are also Pitt fans still will not admit that, but the numbers don’t lie. Kenny Pickett has not been good enough. Sure, it’s easy to point to Matt Canada’s tenure as offensive coordinator as a reason why, but it can’t all be that.

In seven less games Rudolph had one less TD than Pickett. He had a pair of two TD games, which Pickett has done only once in the better part of the two seasons. Pickett has a historically low TD per attempt ratio.

The Pitt fan faction of the fan base aggressively defending their guy are jumping all over Rudolph’s interception on Monday. It was his only one in four games. Pickett has thrown as many picks in his career as he has TDs, 13 of each. Even with his early struggles in his career, Rudolph has 19 scores to 11 picks.

I understand Kenny was great at Pitt, I really do. Great college QBs do not succeed in the NFL all the time. Tim Tebow and Jonny Football were Heisman winners and neither had a long NFL career. It’s OK to appreciate what he did at Pitt but also accept he’s probably not the long-term answer at QB. I wanted him to be, too, trust me.

Rudolph probably isn’t, either, in fact, as much as I’d like to see him come back, he’s likely headed elsewhere. And, I’m not even going to start on Mitch Trubisky.

The Steelers were not ready for life after Ben. I predicted they wouldn’t be when I wrote in a similar column in 2019 the Steelers should consider taking Jalen Hurts, who was available when they instead took Chase Claypool (That worked out well, didn’t it?) to sit behind Ben for a year or two and follow the model Green Bay used with Jordan Love from the same draft class.

Wtth Trubisky needing to be let go, Rudolph not likely coming back and uncertainty about Pickett, the position is a major problem this offseason. The problem is they’re not in a draft position to address it, have plenty of other needs to address in the draft in the position they are in and there’s not a clear free agent answer, either.

The next major problem is what happens to the defense when TJ Watt is not on the field. He is the heart and soul of the team, no doubt. An out-of-this world talent and perhaps the best all-around pure football player in the league, but he’s been hurt in numerous key situations and the Steelers are now 1-11 when he does not play.

No one player should be that relied upon. There were several situations on Monday where a big defensive play could have turned the tide, and it’s pretty much always Watt that makes those plays. When he’s not there, someone else has to find a way to make a difference and it simply does not happen.

Watt also does not cover wide receivers or tight ends that somehow repeatedly get wide open against the Steelers defense. His absence does not make multiple players miss tackles on key touchdowns like what happened on the last Buffalo gut-punch of a TD.

I’m not sure what the answer is, but there’s got to be some kind of plan for the defense to not completely implode without No. 90 on the field.

Everyone critical of the Rudolph pick ignores the part where it occurred in the end zone after a long drive, meaning a rested defense just had to keep Buffalo from going 80 yards and could not in a key situation.

Holding the Bills to three after the George Pickens fumble would have gone a long way, too, but it didn’t happen, either.

Good teams play complimentary football and the Steelers do not. It’s pretty simple. Monday is as much on the defense as it is anything else.

And not just Monday, the Steelers have allowed 202 points in the last five playoff games, the most of any team in five-straight playoff games. And Watt wasn’t absent from all of those games.

This year the defense certainly bailed out the inept offense most of the way, but it doesn’t matter how good they are in the regular season if it’s going to implode in the playoffs.

And now it seems at least somewhat likely that defense may lose Cam Heyward, the other heart and soul of the defense and the last of the old Steeler way.

Troubling indeed.

The road back to the playofffs wont be easy, either, even if all of the above gets addressed effectively. The Browns won 11 games having to use five QBs and Joe Burrow will be back healthy in the Steelers division alone. Facts that make another wasted trip that much harder to swallow.

Honestly this airing of the grievances could probably go on much longer, but we’ll stop there.

I guess at least there was a playoff game to be disappointed about this time.

Though I’m not optimistic, I surely hope the above gets addressed in an effective manor.

I’d rather next year not be another where it comes down to scoreboard watching and hoping for help to get in.

Time to regroup for a few days. Then we’ll get back to hanging on to and reading way too much into every piece of off season news.

I’ll be back to being irrationally hopeful in time for camp, where we convince ourselves this team can somehow win another ring it likely won’t … until we’re right back here again next year talking about what went wrong — again.