I’m breaking the rules one more time. Yes, this has the Five Thoughts name and yes that is technically a lie, but the only way I can figure out how to write my genuine, honest thoughts on this game is to kind of just ramble along.

I changed up the format one other time during these game reviews this season: Week 12 against the Browns in Cleveland.

And I suppose it’s rather fitting that Week 12 against the Browns would be the only other time that I would break the rules for this staple of my Steelers writing, because here’s how I ended that week’s therapy session:

“I am grateful for their 8-3 start. I am grateful for the work Tomlin has done with this team this year. But how can you trust that this year is truly different when a game like this still happens?

“You can’t.”

It was that game that my fears had come to life. Not because it was the most obvious trap game I had ever seen. Not because it sucks to lose to a divisional rival. But because that game proved to all of us that there was nothing different about this year’s Steelers team.

Three new quarterbacks, a new offensive coordinator, and some other changes didn’t alter the DNA of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

And from that game on, the Steelers went 2-4, dropping their final four games before heading to Baltimore to be slaughtered by the Ravens.

At this point, the Steelers getting to the playoffs is merely a sacrificial ritual. Their blood is the gift for whichever other playoff team had lucked out in playing them.

In 2021, that was Kansas City, who won their division and got the honor of killing Big Ben and his group of merry men in the QB’s farewell tour. The Chiefs won 42-21.

In 2023, that was Buffalo, who won their division and got an extra blessing from their state’s governor, who moved the game to a new day, away from inclement weather and to a more favorable day (for them). The Bills won 31-17.

This year, that honor got passed to Baltimore, who stole the division while the Steelers were reeling and got rewarded with easy prey early on. The Ravens won 28-14.

I wish I could tell you that I was surprised. I wish I could tell you that anyone out there was surprised. I wish I could tell you that anyone in Pittsburgh, or Baltimore, or any other place where Prime Video was being streamed was surprised at this result.

But this was something that everyone saw coming.

The oddsmakers, who set the Ravens as a nearly double digit favorite saw it coming. Ravens head coach John Harbaugh let it slip that he saw it coming, when he spoke on injured wide receiver Zay Flowers and said they’d start getting him ready for “next week.” And although they would never, ever admit it, if you gave the players in the locker room truth serum, they’d say they saw it coming too.

And the saddest, most frustrating part of it is how it started. It’s a movie that we have seen every single playoff game since their last win in 2016. This is a graphic that made the rounds on Steelers Twitter/X before the game.

Since the last time they won a playoff game, the Steelers have:

• Fallen behind 10-0 to New England in 2016
• Fallen behind 21-0 to Jacksonville in 2017
• Fallen behind 28-0 to Cleveland in 2020
• Fallen behind 35-7 to Kansas City in 2021
• Fallen behind 21-0 to Baltimore in 2024

With the exception of the Patriots and Chiefs games, the Steelers dig themselves into suchg a massive hole early in these games. Then at some point, usually at or around halftime, the team finally wakes up and realizes the game has started. They ever so slowly start to mount a comeback, but the deficit is simply too much to overcome, and the Steelers lose.

It’s a script that is so predictable and so tired, no Steelers fan could reasonably get excited when the team found a way to cut the game down to two scores.

The Ravens were up 21-0 entering halftime, while the Steelers had managed to get two first downs and had yet to run a single play in Ravens territory. Coming out of the half, the Steelers got a stop, and Russell Wilson found Van Jefferson of all people to cap off a 98-yard drive.

But the defense couldn’t be bothered to make a stop, and as was the case all night, Derrick Henry ran all over them and made it 28-7.

A Wilson connection to George Pickens put the game at 28-14, but that was all she wrote.

Honestly, I don’t have a ton of detailed thoughts about the second half. It was nice to see the offense try for five minutes, but like I said earlier, it was impossible to get at all excited about anything in this game. I was watching a funeral.

This should be Wilson’s last game as a Steeler. I like him as a person, I think he has a claim to make for the Hall of Fame, and I’m not going to pretend like I didn’t love him when he was winning.

But sports is a “what have you done for me lately?” business. What has Wilson done for the Steelers lately?

His decision making took a sharp decline, his accuracy took a dip, his turnover rate went way up, and he stopped looking like the Wilson of Seattle and started looking like the Wilson of Denver.

Oh, and he lost straight five games.

It’s time to move on there. It was worth the try, it just didn’t work.

In preparing to write about this game, I went back and read some of my stuff from Pittsburgh’s playoff appearance last year in Buffalo. Aside from taking away the fact that I’m very funny, it was so much easier to root for the Steelers last season.

They came into the playoffs having won three in a row, forcing their way to snag a seat at the table. With third string quarterback Mason Rudolph at the helm, they were truly the definition of “playing with house money,” and despite everyone counting them out, there was a genuine sense of belief with that team.

There was none of that this season. No hope, no excitement, no whimsy. The Steelers fell so far down that they really didn’t even deserve to be in the postseason when it finally rolled around, and the Ravens showed exactly why.

So, off we go to another offseason full of questions. The playoff win drought reaches eight years.

But one thing will sadly remain. The national media will keep telling you, a Steelers fan, how lucky you are to be experiencing this. How lucky you are that the Steelers haven’t had a losing season. How lucky you are to be in the mix all the time.

What they’ll leave out is that no coach has been given this much time with such little success. That the Steelers haven’t won a playoff game since Barack Obama was still in office. That the Steelers have gotten killed time and time again in the playoffs, and the story never changes.

This season, this run, this overall vibe of the franchise is something you should be so proud to be a part of.

I can only blame the media so much. They aren’t in Pittsburgh; it’s impossible to get the true pulse of a team in another city, no matter how hard some may try. But I don’t see that “luck” the same way, and I’m pretty sure you don’t either.

I don’t know what their excuse will be this season. Maybe it will be the tough end-of-season schedule. Maybe it will be running into Lamar Jackson in the playoffs. Maybe it will be Wilson’s demise.

Look, I’m not going to march outside Acrisure Stadium with a pitchfork and a sign. Truthfully, I’m just asking those outside Pittsburgh to open their eyes. Eight years of no playoff wins (something nearly 75% of the league has been able to accomplish) is not “lucky” for any fanbase, and saying that to them is incredibly tone deaf.

I don’t know what the future holds for this team. No one does.

All I know is the embarrassment, frustration, and overall humiliation that is playoff football for the Pittsburgh Steelers. That’s their brand…until it’s not.

Whenever that is.

Closer

This ends the second annual Steelers review section of Fifth Avenue Sports. If you sat through any and or all of these Five Thoughts things (or the two imposters), I thank you so dearly.

Last season, I did all of the postgame remarks like this, with no real structure and no real direction, just as if I was rambling to you with no escape. I will admit, sometimes I missed that format, but at other times I definitely preferred the point-by-point structure. I’m not sure what I’ll do for next season, but I definitely intend on running at least one of those formats for the 2025 season.

Last season, I was a fully independent writer, which meant all my thoughts and coverage on the Steelers landed all in one place, this website. This year, I had a gig with the amazing folks at The Pitt News, who were gracious enough to let me do columns on everything from Mike Tomlin to Ben Skowronek and everything in between. Nearly half of my work with them has been covering the Steelers, which meant the only time I had for Steelers stuff was in these postgame remarks.

I will truly miss doing these kinds of things, even if it is only until next fall. It always sucks when it ends, but to tell you the truth, it sucks a lot more when it ends like this. I can’t tell you how much I wanted the Steelers to shock the world and give this series at least one more week of life, but, así la vida.

So with all of that being said, go take a drink of water. Put on your comfy clothes, lie in bed, and put on your favorite show. That’s the only cure I can come up with for a night like this, so that’s the advice I will pass on to you.

Thank you all for everything, and until next time I suppose.

(Featured photo from Getty Images)