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| Gene J. Puskar/AP |
The Pittsburgh Steelers have entered their bye week 3-3, tied for last in the division with the Cleveland Browns. They come out of their bye week against said Browns on Sunday, October 31st at 1 PM. The Browns look like they’ll be entering that game 3-4 and firmly in last place, unless they can somehow overcome the large amount of injuries they have sustained and beat the Denver Broncos on a short week this Thursday night.
With the Steelers entering their bye week, it begs the
question, how have the Steelers performed under Mike Tomlin out of their bye? Tomlin is now in his 15th season
as Steelers head coach so there is plenty of data to look at by now.
2007
The Steelers started out hot in Tomlin’s first season. They began the year 4-1 with their only loss
coming against soon-to-be Super Bowl foes, the Arizona Cardinals. The Steelers were slated to travel to Denver
to take on the Broncos after their Week 6 bye which gave them extra time to get
acclimated to that Rocky Mountain altitude.
Unfortunately, it didn’t work. The Broncos beat the Steelers, behind quarterback
Jay Cutler, on a 49-yard field goal from Jason Elam as time expired. The Steelers would, however, go on a
three-game winning streak after that.
They finished the regular season 10-6 and lost to David Garrard and the
Jacksonville Jaguars in the Wild Card game.
2008
Strangely, the Steelers had another Week 6 bye in 2008 and
sure enough they entered the bye 4-1 again.
This time they were coming off a win over the same Jaguars team that knocked
them out the year before, plus an OT win over division rival, the Baltimore
Ravens.
The Steelers came out of the bye on the road against another
division foe, the Cincinnati Bengals.
Fortunately for the Steelers, there was no altitude change this time and it
showed. They whooped the Bengals, with
Ryan Fitzpatrick under center for Cincinnati, to the tune of 38-10. Mewelde Moore ran for 120 yards and two
touchdowns.
The Steelers were up and down for a few weeks before winning
6 of their last 7 games. They would end the season with a 12-4 record, which was enough for a first-round postseason bye. This would prove valuable as the Steelers would go
on to win Tomlin’s only Super Bowl so far as a head coach, beating the Arizona Cardinals 27-23.
2009
The similarities of Tomlin’s byes continued into 2009. Although this one took place in Week 8, the
Steelers were again traveling to higher altitude to take on the Broncos, this
time led by quarterback Kyle Orton. The
5-2 Steelers were coming off a 10-point win against the Minnesota Vikings.
It would appear this time, the Steelers were unaffected by
the thinner air and beat the Broncos 28-10.
Unfortunately, Pittsburgh would then drop their next five in a row, two
in OT, and miss the playoffs with a final regular season record of 9-7.
2010
Continuing the trend of early byes, the Steelers had a Week
5 bye in 2010. They had just lost a
close one to the Ravens at home, 17-14. Dennis
Dixon started the opener and Charlie Batch was tasked with the next three games
after Roethlisberger was suspended for four games due to an incident involving
a 20-year-old college student who accused him of sexually assaulting her in a
Georgia nightclub in March of that year.
In a testament to the Steelers defense and running back
Rashard Mendenhall, the team somehow entered the bye 3-1 with their starting quarterback returning for a home game against Cleveland in Week 6. The Steelers easily transitioned
Roethlisberger back in the fold, winning 28-10.
Ben threw for 257 yards and three touchdowns. It may have helped that
the Browns were starting Colt McCoy at quarterback.
Pittsburgh went on to win nine of their last twelve under
Roethlisberger for a record of 12-4. They
would beat the division rival Ravens in the divisional round and defeat Rex
Ryan and the New York Jets in the conference championship, but then lose to Aaron
Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers in the Super Bowl. It remains the Steelers most recent Super Bowl appearance.
2011
In 2011, the Steelers would finally get a late week
bye. It took until Week 11 for the team
to get a rest and they entered their bye 7-3.
Ben was having a truly outstanding year, topping 330 passing yards four times in their first ten games.
The Steelers would come out of their bye to take on the Kansas
City Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium in Week 12.
The Chiefs hadn’t quite found their franchise quarterback yet and were
starting, familiar face, Tyler Palko from the University of Pittsburgh. The Steelers took advantage of four turnovers
by Palko and won the game 13-9. The
offense had a pretty lousy game with Ben only throwing for 193 yards, 81 of
them to Antonio Brown.
Pittsburgh would turn that win into a 3-game winning streak
and win 5 of their last 6 for a regular season record of 12-4. Unfortunately, Tim Tebow, the thin air, and
the rest of the Denver Broncos would get the best of the Steelers in the Wild
Card game, wining 29-23 in Overtime.
2012
Another early bye would greet the Steelers in 2012, this
time occurring in Week 4. The Steelers
stumbled into it at 1-2 after losing a road game to their rival from the 70’s, the
Oakland Raiders. It was a Carson Palmer
revenge game after the Steelers defense knocked out Palmer from the Wild Card
game in 2005, ending the Bengals season that year.
The Steelers would even up their record at 2-2 against the Philadelphia
Eagles in Week 5. It was a low scoring
game against, then future Steeler, Mike Vick.
The Steelers would drop a close one at Tennessee before ripping off a
four-game win streak. However, the good
play wouldn’t last as the Steelers dropped 5 of their last 7 games and ended
the season 8-8, missing the playoffs.
2013
Nobody needed their bye week more than the Steelers did in
2013. Going into their Week 5 bye, the
Pittsburgh Steelers were an unprecedented 0-4.
Tomlin was on the hot seat and it looked like he and Ben would sustain
their first losing season of their careers.
However, the Steelers would beat the Jets in Week 6, with
the Jets led by quarterback (Remember Me?) Geno Smith! The Steelers would also maintain that
momentum, winning five of their seven games out of the bye and three of their
last five for an 8-8 record, sparing them from a losing season. The Steelers would miss the playoffs for the
second season in a row.
2014
The Steelers again needed their bye week in 2014, but for
different seasons. They had slogged
through 11 games already and walked into their Week 12 bye at a decent
7-4. Ben looked like his old incredible
self, including a game where he threw for 522 yards and six (6!) touchdowns in a Week 8 rout of the
Indianapolis Colts.
Ben kept the good play rolling after the bye, throwing for
435 yards and two touchdowns against the New Orleans Saints. Unfortunately, the defense didn’t show up that
day for the Steelers and they lost 35-32.
The ship was fortunately righted, and on the back of Big Ben, the
Steelers finished the season 11-5. They
would lose the Wild Card Game to the Baltimore Ravens at home, not making Tomlin’s
seat any cooler, despite the postseason appearance.
2015
Despite Ben being a true iron man at this point in his
career, he did get too injured to play, stepping aside for four games in
2015. Mike Vick and Landry Jones would
fill in during his absence. Even with the
injury to Ben, the Steelers went into their Week 11 bye a respectable 6-4. They had just crushed the Browns 30-9 at home
where Ben threw for 379 yards and three touchdowns.
Unfortunately, the trend of the defense not showing up after
the bye week continued into Week 12 of that season. The Steelers traveled to Seattle to take on
Russell Wilson and the Seahawks. Ben
could only translate his 456 passing yards into one touchdown, while Wilson
used his 345 passing yards to convert five passing touchdowns on the day.
The Steelers would finish the regular season 10-6 and earn a
spot in the postseason. They would
finally win a playoff game against the Bengals, just to lose to the Broncos in
the divisional round, this time led by Peyton Manning. The Broncos would go on to win the Super Bowl
over the Carolina Panthers that year.
2016
The post-bye-week trend continued down a bad path in
2016. After entering the Week 8 bye at
4-3, the Steelers would lose two in a row to the Ravens and the Dallas
Cowboys. It left them with a 4-5 record
heading into Week 11.
Fortunately, the Steelers turned it around and won their
last seven regular season games. They’d
make it nine in a row after defeating the Miami Dolphins and the Chiefs in the
Wild Card round and Divisional rounds, respectively. Unfortunately, the Steelers luck ran out in Foxborough, as it tended to for every team then, and they were defeated by the New England Patriots
in the conference championship game.
2017
In addition to breaking the dreaded post-bye-week curse, the
Steelers just had an overall great regular season in 2017. After coming out of their Week 9 bye with a
6-2 record, the Steelers would win seven of their remaining eight games for a
13-3 record, and a postseason bye.
Unfortunately, the rust of the postseason bye showed up more
than the rest. The Steelers would drop the divisional round game to the Jacksonville Jaguars, 45-42. It was a humiliating loss to quarterback
Blake Bortles where the defense simply could not get a stop. Ben threw for 469 yards and five touchdowns
and it still wasn’t enough to get it done.
2018
2018 continued on the winning trend. Going into their Week 7 bye, the Steelers
were 3-2-1 after tying the Browns in Week 1.
They would face that same Browns team at home in Week 8. The Browns did not look nearly as effective
at Heinz Field and the Steelers won 33-18.
This started a four-game winning streak that was followed by a three-game losing streak. The Steelers finished the season 9-6-1 and missed the playoffs.
2019
After an awful 2-4 start to the season, where the Steelers
lost Big Ben to a season-ending injury in Week 1, the Steelers limped into
their Week 7 bye. With the coaches
juggling between Mason Rudolph and Devlin “Duck” Hodges, they somehow beat the
Dolphins in Week 8, and won six of their last ten.
This saved the winning season streak, but they would finish 8-8 and miss
the playoffs once again.
2020
With Ben Roethlisberger back at the helm, the Steelers would
start the 2020 season with an eleven-game winning streak! This included a win over the Philadelphia
Eagles in Week 5 after their Week 4 bye.
Ben threw for 239 yards and three touchdowns, but the real standout was
rookie Chase Claypool who accounted for 110 of those yards and all three TDs.
Somehow, the wheels totally fell off of this team around
Week 13 and the Steelers dropped four of their last five games for a regular
season record of 12-4. They would then
lose to the Browns in the Wild Card round and what started as a magical season,
crashed and burned in a fiery explosion.
Ben did throw for 501 yards and four touchdowns in the game, but also
threw four interceptions.
Concluding Thoughts
So, there you have it.
Aside from a 3-year stretch where the Steelers drop three post-bye week
games in a row, Tomlin-led teams have been downright incredible out of their
bye. He is 10-4 in those games and three
of his four losses came from a 3-year stretch from 2014 through 2016.
Additionally, the Steelers Week 8 opponent, the Cleveland
Browns have two weeks to get healthy, but they are really banged up. Quarterback Baker Mayfield keeps dislocating
his non-throwing arm and they are down to their third running back. I see Tomlin making his post bye-week record
11-4 on Halloween against the Browns.