The Steelers Have a Chance, This Time

How happy are Pittsburgh Steelers fans that the team is not taking on one of the AFC’s Boogeyman quarterbacks (Mahomes, Jackson, Burrow, Allen) of the last few years Monday night at Acrisure Stadium?

Pretty happy, I think, given that a seeming majority feel like the franchise is going to experience its first taste of playoff victory since an 18-16 win against the Kansas City Chiefs all the way back on January 15, 2017.

I understand the sentiment, to a point. The Houston Texans are a lot of things, but a Death Star-style offensive juggernaut they are not. The point spread reflects this, too; Houston is a 3.5-point road favorite, which is an impressive number, but hardly one that suggests the Steelers are dead in the water.

To wit, Mike Tomlin’s team was also a 3.5-point underdog at home in Week 18 against Baltimore, and we all saw how that one turned out. (Thank you again, Tyler Loop. The check’s in the mail.)

The current (read: post-Roethlisberger) Steelers have played three playoff games during this streak of futility. They were 12.5-point underdogs on the road against the Chiefs, 10-point underdogs at Buffalo, and 9.5-point underdogs at Baltimore.

Combined score: 101-52. The haters said the Steelers had no chance going into those games, and the haters were right. Honestly, great call by the haters.

The run-up to this game has been different, though. Because they are not facing one of the best quarterbacks in the league, optimism is running high, and fans seem to feel that the Steelers have a real chance to win.

Cool, and guess what? I think they do, too!

There is a big gulf between, “I think they have a real chance to win” and “I think they are going to win,” however. And a whole lot of people have taken their basic belief in the former concept and jumped enthusiastically to the latter, with such certainty that any suggestion that the Texans are, you know, a competent and good football team is meant with scorn and derision.

Funny thing about that whole school of thought discounting the Texans because they don’t have a Mahomes, an Allen, or a Jackson. Here’s what Houston did to those teams this year:

They took on a Jackson-less Ravens team and completely flattened them, walking into Baltimore and winning 44-10. Almost two months later, they beat the crap out of Josh Allen, sacked him eight times, forced three turnovers, and beat the Bills 23-19. Not even three weeks later they traveled to Kansas City and battered a desperate Chiefs team into submission, shutting them out in three of four quarters en route to a 20-10 win.

None of those results should come as a surprise, given that the Texans are the NFL’s second-best scoring defense, and its top total defense. It is a violent, fast, physical unit, the kind that Tomlin probably dreams of coaching.

Will Anderson Jr. (12 sacks) and Danielle Hunter (15 sacks) are the best edge-rushing duo in the NFL. Derek Stingley is one of the best corners in the league. He might be the best, depending on who you ask. Kamari Lassiter has improved throughout the year. Jalen Pitre is a weapon as a slot corner.

Houston can get to the quarterback without blitzing, and they can stick to wide receivers in coverage plenty long enough for those rushers to get home. Try them over the middle, and Azeez Al-Shaair will try to decapitate whoever catches the ball in his vicinity (Respectfully, of course. He is Houston’s Walter Payton Man of the Year nominee for this year).

What’s even scarier is that Houston is this good without getting cute or trying to confuse opposing quarterbacks. Aaron Rodgers has had success this year in part because he’s rarely, if ever, fooled by a pre-snap look. The Texans don’t bother with any of that; they play simple, and they play fast. Again, it’s like the defense Tomlin probably wishes he could play. Get better Jimmies and Joes, and eschew the Xs and Os.

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Really, I keep mentioning Tomlin here because I suspect the Texans are the kind of team he’d love the Steelers to be. Houston takes care of the ball (their 12 turnovers are second-fewest in the league) and they take it away (29 turnovers forced - good for third in the NFL).

They don’t run the ball that well, and their passing game is middle-of-the-pack, but they’re good enough on offense, and that’s all that really matters. In other words, the Steelers are staring at a younger, better version of themselves. The records bear it out; Houston’s 12-5 and the Steelers, 10-7.

Pittsburgh’s path to victory seems straightforward enough: Turn this game into the kind of ugly rock fight that Tomlin loves, and hope Rodgers is kept upright long enough and often enough to make a few plays down the stretch. Make the Texans one-dimensional on offense, and force C.J. Stroud to move the ball exclusively through the air, and hope he makes a mistake or two.

And, I guess, try to channel a little hidden vigorish and rely on stats that really don’t, or at least shouldn’t, matter. Specifically, the fact that the Texans haven’t won a road playoff game in their entire history, and the fact that the Steelers haven’t lost a home Monday Night Football game since 1991.

Those things really shouldn’t be relevant - it was 27 degrees when Houston beat up Kansas City, for instance - but they’re the kind of little nuggets that have people in southwestern Pennsylvania believing.

I’m not telling anyone not to, either. Houston, by its very nature, tends to not blow teams out. They play games that seem like they could go either way on a regular basis. Seven of their nine wins on the current streak they have going have been of the one-possession variety. Tomlin is the master of one-score games. If this thing is close with seven minutes left, it’s truly anyone’s game; the Steelers might even have the advantage.

Just a note of caution, though. Rodgers won’t last long if Houston’s pass rush gets home. And if the first quarter is another disaster - dating back to the 2016 AFC Championship Game, the Steelers have been outscored 73-0 in the first 15 minutes - there won’t be a comeback to mount. The Texans’ defense is that good, and then some.

I don’t think DeMeco Ryans’ team will overrun the Steelers in the first, and I don’t think Stroud will put on a Superman cape and turn the game into a laugher through sheer individual excellence, either.

Unfortunately, I also don’t think that the Steelers will win, because they are, in every way, staring down the barrel of an opponent that is younger, faster, and better almost across the board. In other words, the Texans are everything the Steelers used to be. And those kinds of Steelers teams didn’t lose games like this.

Texans 19, Steelers 13.