Pittsburgh Steelers: Current winning streak a total team effort

The Pittsburgh Steelers have turned things around after winning one game in their first four outings. What do the recent numbers say about the team?

The recent revival of the Pittsburgh Steelers has not been about one person. And it’s certainly not been about a player that hasn’t been around to date.

These days, Ben Roethlisberger, James Conner, Antonio Brown and Juju Smith-Schuster have excelled on offense and Cameron Heyward, T.J. Watt and Vince Williams have been stars on the other side of the ball. But make no mistake. This has been very much a unified effort.

Since the team opened 0-1-1, the club owns a 6-1 record and is currently riding a five-game winning streak. There’s a lot of credit to go around on both sides of the football. A team that looked out of sorts the first four weeks of the season now appears to be a confident squad that is making plays on both sides of the football.

Perhaps the low point of the season came in the second half of Week 4 in a 26-14 Sunday night home loss to the Baltimore Ravens. The Pittsburgh defense had throughout the season to date and in the second half of that divisional tilt, the offense totaled a mere 47 yards. With one win in their first four outings, this looked like a distracted team that simply wasn’t on the same page together.

But it’s been all positives ever since as the Black and Gold has won five straight games. And over that stretch:

• The victories have come by a combined 177-93 score. That includes a three-game sweep of the division-rival Cincinnati Bengals (28-21), Cleveland Browns (33-18) and Ravens (23-16).
• Mike Tomlin’s team has allowed those aforementioned 93 points and a total of 11 offensive touchdowns. In the club’s first four outings, the Steelers surrendered 116 points and 14 offensive touchdowns — 11 of those scores through the air.
• After allowing nine sacks during the team’s 1-2-1 start, Tomlin’s team has surrendered only three sacks in five contests. The ground game is averaging 132.4 yards per game, compared to 72.3 yards per outing the first four weeks of the season. Kudos to the offensive line.
• The Steelers committed six turnovers in the Week 1 tie at Cleveland. Tomlin’s team has coughed up the football just three times during this 5-0 run and played turnover-free football the last two weeks.

Now Mike Tomlin’s club gets a little extra time to prepare for their Week 11 visit to Jacksonville. The Steelers are atop the AFC North all by their lonesome and own a 3-1-1 record within the division. They don’t play another AFC North foe until they host the Bengals in Week 17.

Credit to Tomlin and the organization for staying the course despite some distractions. But there’s still an awful lot of work to be done if this is to be a really successful season.