Pittsburgh Steelers Steelers News
‘It’s a New Season Now’: Steelers Remain Confident Heading Into Playoffs
The Pittsburgh Steelers are entering the playoffs on a four-game losing streak, but their confidence has not wavered.
PITTSBURGH – The Pittsburgh Steelers are not among those who are considered to be “hot” heading into the playoffs after losing their fourth straight game on Saturday night. That doesn’t mean they’ve lost their confidence, though.
Following yet another disappointing loss, the Steelers reiterated that their goal of winning a Super Bowl is still in front of them.
Right now, that dream seems almost untouchable, but the first step the Steelers are taking is putting the regular season behind them.
“We got to flush this. It’s a new season now,” linebacker Alex Highsmith said. “That’s all we can focus on.”
It remains to be seen where the Steelers will be heading on wild-card weekend. Sunday’s slate of games will decide whether Pittsburgh will be the No. 5 or 6 seed, which would mean a trip to the No. 3 seed Baltimore Ravens or No. 4 seed Houston Texans.
However, the Steelers need to focus on fixing their own issues before worrying about who they will face next week.
Steelers linebacker T.J. Watt doesn’t have any those answers quit yet, but he knows they better find them sooner rather than later if they hope to not be one-and-done in the postseason once again.
“We need to play winning football. We’re not doing that right now,” Watt said. “We just need to get in the film room and get stuff corrected. We’re in the tournament now and we need to play better football.”
Part of getting back to playing winning football is playing elite defense. The Steelers got closer to that this week than they have the past few weeks as they held red-hot Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow to just 277 yards, one touchdown and one interception.
While Pittsburgh’s defense did its part on Saturday night, the same can’t be said for its offense, though. Without an ability to display complimentary football as of late, the Steelers will likely be underdogs no matter who they face in the wild-card round of the playoffs.
Steelers cornerback Joey Porter Jr. looks forward to playing upset if that’s the case.
“I don’t think nobody really cares that we go in as an underdog,” Porter said. “At the end of the day, we just got to play our sound football. When we get on that level, there’s nobody that can really beat us.”
Pittsburgh has a path to ending their seven-year playoff win drought. The Steelers have won eight of the last 10 meetings against the Ravens and the Texans are cooling off as well on a two-game losing streak.
That’s why safety DeShon Elliott thinks maybe a reset, while not easy, could get the job done.
“I intend it will be hard, but we have the guys in the locker room that can get right,” Elliott said. “We just got to get back to the drawing board.”
Read This Next
