Steelers Make Embarrassing NFL First in Loss to Patriots

After a promising start to the season and sitting at 6-3 after 10 weeks, the Pittsburgh Steelers have hit rock bottom. They’ve lost three of the last four games and their last two losses have come against 2-10 teams — the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday and the New England Patriots on Thursday night.

The Steelers have even made NFL history with their embarrassing back-to-back losses to 2-10 teams at Acrisure Stadium. They’re the first team in league history with a record above .500 to lose consecutive games to teams at least eight games below .500.

Steelers become the first team over .500 to lose back-to-back games to teams 8+ games under .500 in NFL history 👀 pic.twitter.com/xjT9sRZbai

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) December 8, 2023

The Steelers are broken right now. It’s hard to imagine that they’ll salvage the season and make a playoff push after losing to bottom feeders like the Cardinals and Patriots. Their final four games are against Indianapolis (7-5) on the road, Cincinnati (6-6), at Seattle (6-6) and at Baltimore (9-3). The Steelers could easily lose the final four games (six overall) and finish 7-10, marking the first losing season for Mike Tomlin in his career and the first for the Steelers since 2003.

With the loss to New England, the Steelers dropped to the eighth seed and out of the playoffs. So, they’re still in the picture. But it’s just hard to see anything changing. They’re a mess on offense and the Sullivan/Faulkner duo can only do so much with Matt Canada’s offense still installed. To make matters worse, Kenny Pickett is out with a high right ankle sprain and isn’t expected to be back until the end of the month. And judging by Mitch Trubisky’s performance on Thursday night, it appears that things will just get worse. Fans at Acrisure Stadium were chanting for Mason Rudolph to replace him. That’s how bad it was.

None of this is all that surprising, however. The Steelers’ style of winning was eventually going to catch up to them. They were the first team in NFL history to be out-gained in their first nine games and have a winning record. This team had massive flaws that were masked over by the defense creating turnovers and Kenny Pickett pulling off late-game heroics. At the same time, losing back-to-back home games to 2-10 win teams at home is unexpected. The bottom really might fall out for the Steelers this year.