Steelers preparing for second half after saying goodbye
PITTSBURGH — Of all the beneficial aspects that come with a mid-season bye week, the Steelers may have received just what they needed the most.
The time away from the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex — spanning from Wednesday afternoon to Monday morning — allowed for some collective deep breaths.
“We needed it,” Markus Wheaton said. “We needed the break to clear our minds and get back to football.”
A rejuvenated Steelers team is well aware of what awaits in the second half of its season, starting on Sunday with a pivotal road contest against the rival Ravens in Baltimore. Cam Heyward said it best.
“It’s a new season now,” he said. “We’ve got nine games left, and that determines if we’re in.”
The Steelers didn’t help themselves and their playoff implications by stumbling into the bye week with two consecutive losses. While they’re still atop the AFC North at 4-3, there’s now a tighter margin for error. Can 10 wins give them the division? It didn’t last year.
“This second half of the season, we have to be on the way up,” Ramon Foster said. “Everything about our season, the way we’ve played, our mental game, us as a team, we have to be on the way up. That’s what this second half of the season is all about.”
An upward trajectory isn’t going to be easy. Five of the remaining nine games come against AFC North opponents, against whom the Steelers rarely take season sweeps. Five of the remaining nine games are also on the road, and the Steelers aren’t exactly prone to winning on a consistent basis away from Heinz Field.
A win on Sunday against the Ravens, who have won eight wins of the 11 meetings since 2011, would be an important step for the Steelers. In addition to a division win, it would be a tone setter for a game against the 6-1 Cowboys on Nov. 13. A loss to the Ravens, who are on a four-game losing streak, would be an alarming cause for concern. Yet, it’s still a very real possibility, unless the Steelers can prove that the last two games were just a blip on the radar.
“There’s a lot of significance in this game,” Heyward said. “Another road game. We’ve struggled in the road games thus far. It’s a great rivalry. Good AFC North game. And I think it determines a lot in the standings. We need to have our best ball and move forward.”
The Steelers will be healthy in the coming weeks, with Heyward, Wheaton, Ben Roethlisberger, Marcus Gilbert, Bud Dupree, DeAngelo Williams and Ladarius Green all expected to return from their respective injuries. A healthy roster isn’t going to be the ultimate fix, however. Improvements still need to be made on both sides of the ball.
Offensively speaking, there’s been a lack of offensive consistency even when Roethlisberger was under center. On defense, the Steelers are last in the NFL in sacks, 25th in passing yards allowed and haven’t been able to stop the run of late.
“It’s a chance for us to hit the reset button,” Ross Cockrell said. “That’s what bye weeks are for. It’s been a chance for us to get healthy and look and see the mistakes that we made as a team before the bye week so we don’t make those same mistakes afterwards.”