CLEVELAND (AP) -Their calling-card swagger has been replaced by a sudden shakiness that’s unbecoming. Reputed bullies, they’ve grown quiet, unsteady and seemingly vulnerable. That’s what happens when you lose four straight games, two against supposed pushovers Kansas City and Oakland.
The Pittsburgh Steelers are a shell of themselves.
Strapped with their longest losing streak since 2003 and with a weakening playoff pulse, the Super Bowl champions are in some serious trouble.
For the first time in a long time, the Steelers (6-6) aren’t so special.
“It’s tough because we haven’t gone through this,” quarterback Ben Roethlisberger said earlier this week. “Most of the guys have never had this situation before, so it’s tough and it’s frustrating. But we can’t sit around here and pout and worry about things because that’s not going to change the outcome of the games we just played.”
Missing at least one star playmaker and perhaps two, Pittsburgh will try to end a four-game slide and improve its postseason chances on Thursday night when it visits the Cleveland Browns (1-11), who have lost seven straight, 10 in a row at home, 12 consecutive to the Steelers and 18 of 19 to their neighbors from down the Ohio/Pennsylvania turnpikes.
Following last week’s 27-24 loss to the Raiders, the Steelers’ fifth defeat by three points this season, coach Mike Tomlin, who had predicted his team would “unleash hell” in December, instead unleashed on his team by lamenting “a pattern of behavior that’s unacceptable.”
Perhaps thinking his team needed a scare, he promised lineup changes against the Browns, but has since backed off a bit. Tomlin still believes in his squad, which hit the season’s midway point at 6-2 and in first place, but he’s troubled by the Steelers’ inability to close out opponents.
Pittsburgh’s defense has been unable to protect a lead in five of the six losses.
‘t.”
Tomlin has issued a challenge to his players and they intend to accept it.
“You’ve got to respond to it,” nose tackle Casey Hampton said. “As a man, you’re paid to do your job and you’ve got to respond to it. I think that’s the right move (Tomlin threatening changes). We’re not getting it done out there. Guys definitely need to be challenged. We got to get out there, get a victory and get out of this slump.
“If guys as a whole just do what we’re supposed to do, we’ll be OK.”
The Steelers may have to do it short-handed.
Pro Bowl safety Troy Polamalu will miss his fourth straight game with a knee injury. Wide receiver Hines Ward, who leads the club with 72 catches and six TDs, is questionable with an injured hamstring and cornerback William Gay has been limited in practice by a concussion suffered against the Raiders.
Just two weeks ago, Ward’s cross-examining of Roethlisberger for sitting out with a concussion caused an uproar that may still be reverberating in Pittsburgh’s locker room.
The Steelers insist they’re united.
strong, stay as the Steelers and play through it.”
After Cleveland, the Steelers will face Green Bay and Baltimore at home before finishing the regular-season in Miami. It’s a favorable schedule for a team looking for a break.
“Last year things went our way, we had some balls bounce for us, and we went on to win the Super Bowl,” Roethlisberger said. “This year it’s not bouncing our way, not getting those lucky breaks that sometimes are involved in a football game. It doesn’t mean that good things still can’t come, we just have to fight through anything.”
Think the Steelers have problems? It’s worse, so much worse, for the Browns.
To this point, coach Eric Mangini’s first season has been the ugliest in Cleveland football annals. The Browns’ offense and defense are each ranked dead last statistically and there’s little tangible evidence the team has improved under Mangini, who is 2-15 in his last 17 games as the coach of the New York Jets and the Browns.
Already some are wondering whether owner Randy Lerner, who is conducting a clandestine search for a “serious, credible leader” to run the football side of his floundering organization, will retain Mangini.
A win over the Steelers might help Mangini’s case or at least give Clevelanders something to celebrate other than a probable Top 5 draft pick next year.
“I’ve met fans who said, ‘If you can just beat the Steelers that will make our year, no matter what you’re record is’,” wide receiver Josh Cribbs said. “We’re not purposely trying to knock them out of the playoffs, but if winning does that, so be it.”
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