PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – The Steelers playoff picture is still a distant panorama in a frame, but here is a look at what the team is saying about their chances and what has to happen.
First off, the playoff chances are 4% according to fivethirtyeight.com and 3% by the New York Times. The Steelers must win their final two games-at Baltimore on Sunday night and home to the Browns.
A Chargers win over the Colts on Monday Night Football punched their ticket to the playoffs. The only way for the Steelers to have been in the playoffs in place of Los Angeles would have been for LA to finish 8-9 as the Steelers would have lost all tiebreakers against the Chargers.
So there is one playoff spot left. If the Dolphins win at New England at 1p on Sunday, the Steelers are eliminated. The Dolphins would need to lose to the Patriots on Sunday and at home to the Jets on Week 18.
If the Patriots to beat Miami which would make them 8-8, they would need to lose at the Bills in a game that might mean nothing for Buffalo.
The loser of the Titans-Jags game on Week 18 would finish with nine losses and the other would win the AFC South. So that will take care of itself barring ties being involved, but let’s keep it as simple as possible.
Jets would win the tie-breaker with the Steelers, so New York would have to lose to the Seahawks this week and then beat Miami as mentioned earlier. The Raiders are the only other team still eligible, but the Steelers would have to finish with nine wins and Las Vegas can’t get to nine wins.
“I honestly haven’t,” said Steelers tight end Connor Heyward Monday of looking at the possibilities. “Whenever I watch football, I just watch it. Obviously, we want to be in the playoffs, but I’m not going to sit there and lay it all out myself. That’s not my job. Our job is to win football games and that’s all we are going to try to do.”
“Don’t really,” said Steelers safety Minkah Fitzpatrick about looking at the playoff scenarios. “I’m big on doing your job, control what you can control. All that we can control is winning our games.”
Not that he isn’t proud of winning three of the last four. Fitzpatrick said they’ve acted as professionals despite their record.
Big Brother
A smile started on his face when Connor Heyward was asked about watching his brother, Cam, run out of the tunnel hoisting a flag with the number 32 on it to signify the life of Franco Harris on Saturday night.
“It was really special,” Connor Heyward said. “I know it was hard on him (Cam) when he heard the news, just having Franco on his show. It’s sad, it was a hard day on him. Glad we won. It was a big-time. We know what it meant to the City of Pittsburgh.”
Jet Ending
The play that sealed the Steelers win on Saturday following the Kenny Pickett to George Pickens touchdown was a jet sweep by Connor Heyward. The Raiders still had two timeouts with 25 seconds left, but Heyward took the handoff from Pickett and went 21 yards for a first down and ended the game.
“I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a jet sweep in my life,” Heyward said. “It was really cool. In college I played running back a little bit. I just used my running back skills. We always rep that in practice. Always be ready for the unexpected, you never know when your number will be called.”
Another key part of that run was Heyward deciding to slide after he knew he had enough yardage to keep from being pushed out-of-bounds and stopping the clock.
“In that situation, if you have a little bit of football awareness, you know what to do,” Heyward said. “I could have run out-of-bounds or tried to maybe score. Just get down, make sure we possess the ball and the game is over.”