There is no excuse for what Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver DK Metcalf did in Detroit to get himself suspended for two games. A player can’t make his way over to the crowd, engage with a fan and make forceful contact with a paying customer.
It doesn’t matter what the person says. It doesn’t matter if the fan is a jerk (and, boy, is that guy from Detroit a piece of work). It doesn’t matter if the previous penalty for doing so was short of a suspension.
You just can’t do it.
How Metcalf got goaded into shoving the fan is an explanation. It’s not an excuse.
Just like his absence from the team Sunday was an explanation for the Steelers’ loss at Cleveland. It wasn’t an excuse.
But we’ll make it one, won’t we?
Oh, you bet we will. Especially if Metcalf’s absence costs the team again this week against the Baltimore Ravens and the Steelers miss the playoffs as a result.
We’re good at explaining away the Steelers’ failures to succeed in the postseason in recent years. With nearly a decade of experience at it, we’ve become masters of the craft.
At the end of each season, going back to the start of this current playoff-win drought, we’ve always had explanations for why the Steelers finished up without a playoff win.
2024: The year-end schedule was brutal, and the run defense collapsed.
2023: It gets snowy in Buffalo in January, and Mason Rudolph’s magic ran out.
2022: T.J. Watt missed seven games.
2021: Ben Roethlisberger was out of gas in Kansas City.
2020: Covid, n’at. Cuz, you know, the Steelers were the only team impacted by covid.
2019: Big Ben’s elbow blew out (even though they won eight of their first 11 without him).
2018: Boz missed some kicks. The X-Ray machine in Oakland didn’t work. Grimble fumbled. JuJu fumbled. The refs screwed us in New Orleans!
2017: Jesse James didn’t survive the ground.
Individually, those are perfectly logical explanations as to why the Steelers didn’t win a playoff game to conclude any of those seasons.
Run them all together, though, and it’s just a lot of excuse-making as to why the franchise is enduring its longest stretch without a playoff win in over half a century.
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At some point, you’ve got to just win a playoff game by overcoming the bad break, the missed call, the rugged schedule, the tough first-round draw on the road or the unfortunate injury.
Or, in this case, the ill-timed suspension.
“It was an impact,” Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said of Metcalf’s suspension. “But we certainly have capable men, and we expect those guys to make necessary plays.”
I beg to differ on one point. I don’t think the Steelers have enough capable receivers. In think the organization’s wide receiver depth is insufficient. It was throughout the offseason. It still is now, and the team has no one to blame but itself for that.
The Steelers just put themselves through this same situation a year ago when they left the receiver depth chart equally barren beyond George Pickens. Naturally, Pickens got hurt in December and missed three games.
The lesson wasn’t learned.
“I have full confidence we’ll go home and win next week,” quarterback Aaron Rodgers said.
I’m glad he has that confidence. But I don’t know how he does with this collection of pass-catching targets.
It certainly doesn’t help that Calvin Austin is also injured. But Austin has never been consistent enough — in terms of health or performance — to be considered a worthy No. 2 receiver.
All of this is to say nothing of the fact that they gave $60 million guaranteed to a guy who has a history of being a hothead in the past. The Sporting News has chronicled 16 different fines for Metcalf since he got into the league in 2019.
You get what you pay for.
That resonates even more since acquiring Metcalf expedited the Pickens trade to Dallas because, largely, Pickens was too much of an unpredictable personality.
Go figure.
And let’s not even get into the fact that (Metcalf or not) the Steelers should be able to score at least one touchdown against the Browns. As good as that Cleveland defense is, it allowed at least one offensive touchdown in 14 of the 15 games it played.
That would’ve been good enough to, at minimum, force overtime and win it or tie it in the extra session. Either result would’ve clinched a playoff spot.
“I think everyone in the locker room is ready to get past what we put on film and what we displayed on Sunday and be able to go into ‘Sunday Night Football,’ execute and win,” tight end Pat Freiermuth said.
Hopefully, but if the Steelers offense lays another egg and the club loses to Baltimore, its season will end without a playoff win for a ninth straight year.
Will Metcalf’s absence be an explanation why the Steelers didn’t even make the AFC bracket to give themselves a chance?
Of course it will be. Is it an excuse, though?
Absolutely not. The Steelers are out of those cards to play.