The Pittsburgh Steelers have gotten a lot of attention from polarizing media pundit, Colin Cowherd Fox Sports throughout the 2023 offseason. He's been all over the place in his assessment of the team from his national perch. He's predicted that Pittsburgh will be a playoff team in 2023 while also ripping into the roster construction and the offensive line and then said the team is a top five roster in the league. During a segment he spent talking about the team on Tuesday, he was back to doom and gloom about one of the most well-respected franchises in NFL history.
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Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and the offense were unable to crawl out from a 21-0 nothing deficit against the Jacksonville Jaguars in the 2017 Divisional Round falling 45-42.
Cowherd started the segment with a list of the things he is a fan of in Pittsburgh like the head coach, the history and the fact that Steelers fans will often pack stadiums on the road. Then he started into his gripes with the team and that filled the rest of the piece.
He said there are lots of people out there that like to throw shade at the Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay Packers for their recent failures of not winning in the postseason, but he said really the attention should be squarely on Pittsburgh for their playoff disappointments.
He went through the lists he and his crew had compiled with teams and their playoff wins over the last 12 years and it took longer than he expected to see Pittsburgh. He had a heavy sense of disbelief when the Steelers did show up with the Carolina Panthers, Tennessee Titans, Jacksonville Jaguars and the Cowboys as teams with only three wins in that span.
"Their (Pittsburgh) playoff wins of that group are the least impressive," he said. "They beat Matt Moore, a backup for Miami, and AJ McCarron, a backup for Cincinnati due to injuries and they didn't score a touchdown with Big Ben to beat Alex Smith and the Kansas City Chiefs."
Cowherd continued to complain about some of the quarterbacks that Pittsburgh has lost to during that stretch. Going back to the first year that was counted, 2011, whe Pittsburgh had an agonizing loss in overtime to Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos.
The next loss Cowherd harped on was the 2017 Divisional game against the Jaguars. Jacksonville came hard out of the gate and built an early 21-0 lead. Pittsburgh cut the lead to 21-7 in the second half with Ben Roethlisberger finding Antonio Brown for a 23-yard score.
After the defense forced a punt, the offense returned to try and do some more trimming of the lead. Then, on 2nd down from about midfield, disaster struck. Roethlisberger was sacked by Yannick Ngakoue and lost the football. Jaguars linebacker, Telvin Smith scooped it up and ran the distance to make it a three-score game.
Pittsburgh fought back to make the score a respectable 45-42, but two turnovers from Roethlisberger and none for Jaguars quarterback, Blake Bortles helped seal the deal.
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Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger sits alone on the bench after Pittsburgh's Wildcard loss to the Cleveland Browns.
The final painful loss Cowherd brought up was the 2020 Wildcard blunder against Baker Mayfield and the Cleveland Browns. Pittsburgh, like in 2017, failed to show up to start the game and trailed 28-0 by the end of the first quarter. The team tried to claw back into the game with Roethlisberger throwing four scores and running back, James Connor scoring, but again the game was lost before shortly after it started. Teams also very rarely win when they turnover the ball five times and the opponent doesn't have a single one.
Steelers Still On Upwards Trajectory According To Cowherd
Cowherd said he still likes the direction of the franchise. He thinks that Head Coach, Mike Tomlin can continue his record of never having a losing season and has turned into a fan of second-year quarterback Kenny Pickett.
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Steelers quarterback Kenny Pickett lines up to throw a ball at the team's 2023 training camp in Latrobe, PA.
Cowherd praised the team for its selection of Pickett and the commitment to the draft and developing model. He said the organization has set itself apart from some of the other big brand-name teams in the league.
"We look at the Steelers as highly functional," he said. "They don't have the drama that [Aaron] Rodgers and [Brett] Favre provided. They don't have the ego the Cowboys have."
He said he expects to see more wins pile up for the franchise as they move forward with Pickett. He's just not sure how many "big wins" the team has in its future.
Do you think Cowherd has a point about the lack of wins in big moments? Do you think the team has some big wins coming? Comment below!
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