The franchise’s losing streak in playoff games is a main topic of conversation among Pittsburgh Steelers fans.
It’s frequently cited by writers and talk-show hosts. Even the team’s owner has gone on record about a nine-year drought of postseason wins, saying “we’ve had enough of this.”
But one man who won’t expound upon the six-game playoff-game losing streak is the individual most associated with it and with the organization on whole.
During his weekly news conference, coach Mike Tomlin on Tuesday swatted away questions about the Steelers’ lack of recent postseason success with the dexterity of a Cameron Heyward deflected pass.
Don’t ask Tomlin what it would mean for the franchise to win its first playoff game since Barack Obama was still in office. With the Houston Texans coming to town Monday, Tomlin is efforting to keep his team focused on that and not on what he called “reflective, big-picture stuff.”
“You know, it’s not about the organization or myself,” Tomlin said of what finally getting a postseason victory would mean. “It’s about this collective. And quite frankly, most of these men don’t care about the last whatever years (of the streak). Most of them are new to us, and so that’s where my focus is.”
Forget the totality of the playoff futility streak that will extend to (at least) a decade if the Steelers (10-7) can’t beat the Texans (12-5). Only one player has taken part in each of those defeats, and only two were so much as part of the organization when the streak began with a 36-17 loss to the New England Patriots in the AFC championship game at the end of the 2016 season.
Tomlin is right that the majority of the team’s players have yet to even experience one of the Steelers’ playoff losses.
When the Steelers take the field 8 p.m. Monday at Acrisure Stadium, 366 days will have passed since their most recent playoff game — a loss, of course — at the Baltimore Ravens in last season’s wild-card round.
Half of the 22 players who started for the Steelers that chilly Jan. 4 at M&T Bank Stadium will not be starters this Monday. Of the Steelers’ current 53-man roster, only 23 played in last season’s playoff game.
Perhaps that’s just one example why whatever weight the Steelers’ playoff skid might carry, Tomlin is willing to shoulder the brunt of it.
“I’m certainly not going to unpack my bags on the collective’s bed, if you will,” Tomlin said. “I’m excited about (winning a playoff game), and doing it this week with this collective.”
If less than half of the players who suit up Monday for the Steelers have been part of even one of the Steelers’ six straight playoff losses, exponentially fewer have been there for anywhere close to all of them.
Kicker Chris Boswell has appeared in all six — the January 2017 AFC championship, a divisional round home loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars the following season, followed by wild-card round losses at the end of the 2020, 2021, 2023 and 2024 seasons.
Heyward was on the roster and a team co-captain for all six defeats, albeit he was on injured reserve for the AFC title game loss in Foxborough that began it.
• Only four starters remain who played the second-most recent of the Steelers’ playoff defeats, in January 2024 at the Buffalo Bills: Heyward, Alex Highsmith, Joey Porter Jr. and Isaac Seumalo.
• The fourth of the six straight Steelers playoff losses was at the end of the 2021 season, at the Kansas City Chiefs. Only seven Steelers who even played in that game (Heyward, Highsmith, Boswell, T.J. Watt, James Pierre, Pat Freiermuth and Christian Kuntz) are with the team today.
• Watt joins Boswell, Heyward and Pierre as the only current Steelers who can own any more than half of the six-game postseason skid.
• Those latter four were in uniform for a 48-37 loss to the Cleveland Browns that ended the Steelers’ 2020 season. That was the most recent home Steelers playoff game (though in front of no fans during the pandemic).
• The only other of the Steelers’ recent six playoff losses to come at what is now called Acrisure Stadium came in the 2017 divisional round, when a young Jalen Ramsey and the Jaguars beat the Steelers, 45-42.
Like the playoff losing streak, Tomlin on Tuesday was likewise in no mood to pontificate about the Steelers getting to play a postseason game in front of their own fans for the first time in eight years.
“You know, I don’t know that we’re big-picture in anything right now,” Tomlin said. “We’ve just got a big week ahead of us. We’ve got big days ahead of us. And that’s just kind of where we are. That reflective, big-picture stuff is just not realistic as I stand here. I understand (getting asked about it). But when you are in it, I just think your perspective is a lot different.”