Jan 19, 2019 6 min read

There is a perception that the Steelers are trapped in some kind of circus-type atmosphere, largely because of situations surrounding two of its star players, Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell.

That’s why the question was posed to team president Art Rooney II this week regarding his team and the theater that has surrounded it the past couple of seasons. Are the Steelers a circus?

“First, I don’t go and listen to talk radio very often so that’s my first response. I don’t know where it comes from. As far as I’m concerned it’s nonsense,” Rooney said. “We work hard to get to where we are, and like I said, I think if you evaluate the season we didn’t achieve our goal (of) winning the division, but we finished a half-game out of the division, in a winning division, had lots of opportunities to get there. It’s disappointing but not sure how that makes you a circus.”

Actions, however, speak louder than words.

Safety Mike Mitchell, who went down the tunnel prior to Pittsburgh’s 45-42 loss to the Jaguars to yell at Jacksonville’s locker room, in what at that point was his latest gaffe, was jettisoned last offseason. You can’t be an average player and be a constant distraction.

Bell and Brown? Well, they won’t be back, either.

To understand that, you have to know what Rooney said regarding Brown’s decision to go AWOL prior to the season-finale against Cincinnati, with the Steelers needing a win to have a chance to make the playoffs. Rooney said Brown’s other actions – leaving training camp for a week, skipping a team meeting after a loss to Kansas City, etc. – weren’t problems. It wasn’t until he walked out on his team, thus robbing it of his on-field contributions, that things were different.

“The situation changed the last week in the season, so if you start talking about that period from then until now, it’s a different story,” Rooney said. “For the most part, I’d say he wasn’t a distraction to this team and the proof is in the pudding. Obviously, that changed last weekend of the season and there is no other way to say it other than I am very disappointed with where we are and what happened and don’t have a lot of good explanations for it.”

But you can bet dollars to donuts the team will move forward with players who are less concerned about off-field issues than they are the on-field product.

That’s where, to steal Rooney’s phrase, the proof will be in the pudding.

• Do the Steelers have major off-field issues? Not really.

What they had is star players. And star players get attention. But for all the attention players such as Brown and Bell have drawn, the Steelers also haven’t won a Super Bowl with them.

But it’s tough to say it’s good riddance. It will be tough to replace that talent drain, especially when you factor in the loss of linebacker Ryan Shazier.

On the plus side, the top three picks in the 2017 draft, linebacker T.J. Watt, wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster and running back James Conner, will all be playing in the Pro Bowl next weekend. That’s a good place to start.

• Rooney also took some heat on the talk-radio circuit for saying the Steelers’ defense had shown improvement in 2018.

That’s true, if you compare it to the one that finished 2017 post-Shazier. That defense couldn’t stop the run, was still giving up 40-yard-plus pass plays on a regular basis and allowing nearly 27 points per game.

Despite the narrative that the defense stinks, it finished sixth in fewest yards allowed this season and ranked 10th against the pass. This despite facing five of the league’s top-10 passing offenses.

The Steelers were tied for 16th in scoring defense at 22.5 points per game, which is, of course, the thing that matters more, but given they were minus-11 in turnover ratio, that’s still doesn’t qualify as a defense that stinks.

But the defense was markedly better than the unit that finished 2017.

• Does defense still matter, anyway? Perhaps not if you look at the teams in today’s conference championship games.

While the Saints, Rams, Patriots and Chiefs were the top four offenses in 2018 – the Steelers were sixth – none rank higher on defense than New Orleans at 14. The Patriots were seventh in scoring defense, but that was largely built on a soft home schedule. The Patriots were horrible defensively on the road, which led to their 3-5 record away from home.

Five of the league’s top 10 scoring defenses made the playoffs, but only one, New England, is still alive. Eight of the top 10 scoring offenses made the postseason with four still alive.

This week’s picks

Saints minus 3 over Rams: The Saints won the previous matchup back in Week 9 in Los Angeles, 45-35, in a game that was played in a wide-open style. The teams will likely play things a little more closely to the vest this time. The Saints losing Sheldon Rankins to a torn Achilles’ tendon last week will hurt their run defense. The big defensive tackle is a premiere run-stuffer. But Drew Brees is 6-0 at home in the postseason. That should add up to a 34-30 victory.

Chiefs minus 3 over Patriots: As mentioned above, the Patriots were 3-5 on the road with losses to the Steelers, Lions, Titans, Jaguars and Dolphins. The only one of those teams with an offense nearly as good as the one the Chiefs will put on the field Sunday was the Steelers. Kansas City allowed just 213 passing yards per game at home compared to 325 on the road. The Patriots will be making their eighth-consecutive appearance in the conference championship game, which is a nice feat, but they’ll have to settle for that, as the Chiefs will win this one, 31-24.