There will be a swing totally to one side or the other.
No middle here – not at all.
Oh yes, come Monday it'll be alright or come Monday it will be absolute disaster.
Mark my words.
And there will be no middle ground to be found. It will, decidedly, be one or the other.
Total disaster or real, true hope and positivity.
So let me explain a little …
The Pittsburgh Steelers head into Sunday Night Football at 2-3 as they host the Russell Wilson-les Seattle Seahawks, a team with an atrocious defense but, nonetheless (even with Geno Smith at quarterback) one that could still jump up and get you.
An open date follows for the Steelers; they won't play until Halloween after Seattle leaves town.
There you go, the scene is set.
Now, normally, the football season is rampant with emotional swings but this one will be extraordinary.
Let's think about if the Steelers win. If they get past the Seahawks --- no matter how they do it --- the talk will be how they battled back from the early-season stumbles and got to the open week at .500. The fans will chatter about how the Steelers are "right back in it" in the AFC North and how the Bills win might not have been some fluke after all.
The arrow, certainly, would be pointing up as a team seemingly left for dead will be 3-3 more than one-third of the way through the season with still a chance to make a ton of hay in the AFC North.
That will be the talk for 14 days. And it should be. People will be excited about the prospects of this squad. And they should be.
But if they lose?
Yikes.
No matter how they lose, the Steelers would be 2-4 and people will be absolutely sullen and gloomy. The fan base will talk about how the Steelers will have a better chance of taking a bunch of Ls for a good pick than they do actually getting it together, winning some games and making their way into the playoffs. If the Steelers lose to the Seahawks on Sunday night, this football team will be declared on life support (at best) by this city on Monday morning.
I am one of us, I know how we act, think and feel and know what we say. And, truth be told, if the Steelers lose to Seattle, fans might not be wrong for thinking it is pretty much over --- even with a bunch of AFC North football ahead of the black and gold.
Oh, on top of that, it wouldn't be just a few days of sitting and stewing. It will be two full weeks, making the dejection and melancholy all that much more negative.
Man, Monday morning really is going to be something in this town. Trust me. I know how this will go.
It is going to feel like the season is just beginning or the season is pretty much over.
