What transpired on Saturday night was a Playoff beatdown of epic proportions at the hands of the Steelers biggest rival, the Baltimore Ravens. The final 28-14 score did not convey how badly the game was lopsided, nor how badly the Ravens had repeatedly punched the Steelers in the mouth that night. In what has become an almost annual tradition (when the Steelers DO make the Playoffs), the Steelers looked like an elementary school kid trying to play Varsity football, and the results were about as bad as you’d imagine in your head in that hypothetical scenario.

The Steelers Offense was completely lost, and I am not sure myself where to start placing blame.

Did the Offensive Line block well for this game? Not nearly enough, but I don’t believe that OLine Coach Pat Meyer is the problem. Remember that the Steelers saw 3 starters hit the season ending IR in the first couple weeks of the season. The progress Bro Jones, Zach Frazier, and Mason McCormick has made during the season as Rookie and second year starters proves that Meyer has done his job sufficiently. Had McCormick been available for this game, the Run Game may have been able to sustain some drives on the ground.

If the Offensive Line is having issues, it goes without saying that the Running Backs struggled. But then again, where were the Jaylen Warren RB Screen plays that would have negated some of the pressure that Baltimore was bringing?

Did the Wide Receivers get enough space on opposing Defensive Backs? Questionable, as the Steelers had one true legit alpha WR in George Pickens, who may not even be with the team next year due to his maturity issues. That leaves a whole bunch of WR2’s, to catch passes from… whom exactly next year?

All three of the Steelers QB’s are heading for Free Agency in March, and I for sure don’t think that Russell Wilson is the QB to get the job done. I also don’t believe that Justin Fields is the QB of the future. And then there’s Kyle Allen, who at times flashed that he understood, and could actually RUN the offense that Arthur Smith called, but his talent level is nowhere near that of Wilson and Fields.

The Steelers Defense is even MORE lost than the Offense, which is absolutely unacceptable when considering the league-leading amount of money spent. I don’t know if it was me, or just the matchup between these two teams, but it seemed like Minkah, Cam, and TJ all disappeared from the field at the same time. TJ Watt in particular may as well have not even shown up, as he didn’t record a single mark on the stat sheet at all. Let me repeat that: TJ Watt played against the Ravens in a Playoff game, and was held without a single stat. Did Father Time tackle all 3 of these guys on the same night?

I don’t know if that was a result of game planning by the Ravens, or mistakes by Defensive Coordinator Teryl Austin. The Steelers questionably were crashing their EDGE’s early in the game to try and nullify Derek Henry, as opposed to playing contain on Lamar. All it did was give Lamar all the RPO runs he wanted to take, and his talent is undeniable in that aspect. What I DO know is that the Steelers gave up 299 yards rushing on the ground compared to their own 29 yards on the ground. It was very UN-Steelers-like to see them get manhandled at the line of scrimmage to allow Derek Henry a 7.2ypc average. The Steelers got “out-Steelered” by their biggest rivals.

And for all the crap that I’ve given Danny Smith and his Special Teams over the years, this was the year that he shut me up, and that wasn’t even enough to make any kind of difference for this team in this season. Chris Boswell’s historic season that saw him take 2nd place All Time in FG Made in a Season didn’t do much of anything once the Playoffs came around. The Steelers cashed in their touchdown chances from outside Boswell’s range, and couldn’t muster enough offense to get inside his range to get him any more chances.

But let’s backup for a minute and take a bigger picture look at what is going on with the Franchise as a whole. The loss on Saturday night wasn’t surprising, and it has been coming for weeks, if not years. The Steelers didn’t get themselves into this position overnight, and unfortunately, unless there are major changes at the top with Coach Tomlin willingly walking away, this isn’t going to change back overnight either.

It was reported by Adam Schefter of ESPN that Coach Tomlin has a No Trade Clause in his contract, and to be honest, I don’t know that the Steelers would trade him. There have only been 3 trades ever for a Head Coach, and unless someone offers the Steelers the world in compensation, Coach Tomlin isn’t going to walk away. He’s openly said that he has the best job in professional sports, and he is correct. Unless Omar Khan and Mr. Rooney do the unthinkable, which would have the Chief rolling in his grave, Coach Tomlin isn’t getting fired, isn’t walking away, and isn’t getting traded.

Which begs the question: If Mr. Rooney is seeing all of the same things we are as fans, and yet won’t make the necessary and obvious change, does that start to put Mr. Rooney in the same league as Jimmy Haslem (Owner of the CLE Browns) or Mike Brown (Owner of the CIN Bengals)? Owners whom allow their GM’s to make questionable deals and hires and is ultimately ambivalent to how the Franchise is run or the perception of how much they actually care about the day to day.

SURE, Mr. Rooney is going to SAY all the right things, but so has Coach Tomlin, and that excuse is wearing dangerously thin when your team can’t get the job done, or even look like they belong in the same building. It is a slightly better product than what we witnessed the Browns and Bengals suffer through for years, and the only reason it wasn’t AS bad is because of one Mr. Big Ben Roethlisberger.

The New England Patriots should be the example that the Steelers should follow here. The Patriots took some heat when they fired their head coach Jerrod Mayo last week after only one season, only to turn around and make the one hire that made everyone fall in love with them again when they hired Mike Vrabel.

The same type of move needs to be made here. The Steelers need to do the hard thing, the unpopular thing, and release Mike Tomlin or ask him resign. Who would Mr. Rooney and Omar Khan replace him with? I truly would not know, and that’s probably why the Steelers aren’t going to do anything with their Hall of Fame coach anytime soon, even though it would be warranted. I do know one thing: before this season, there was never a time that I would have thought that Mike Tomlin’s seat was ever getting warm enough, but after what we have witnessed over the last couple of seasons, and the way it transpired yet again this season, makes me believe, or at least hope, that Tomlin’s seat is getting pretty toasty.

Those same head scratching moves that other franchises made over the years that had Steelers fans laughing, are now part and parcel of the “Standard” that this proud franchise has adopted, or at least the Head Coach has adopted and continues to use.

I don’t know where to begin with an overhaul with this team. The good news is that a lot of the dead weight that the Steelers were going to part with anyways, has already kind of taken care of itself. I don’t expect C Nick Herbig, G James Daniels, RB Najee Harris, and a slew of others to re-sign here in Pittsburgh. The first two players have already gotten their replacements, in Zack Frazier and Mason McCormick. Jaylen Warren looks every bit of a capable lead back in the Austin Ekeler mold, but he will need a stablemate to help carry the load. And this is just the beginning of the overhaul.

If fans thought that last offseason had a bunch of change that we fans did not see coming, well, the collapse over the last 5 weeks will guarantee that there will be major changes moving forward. Will it be enough to get the Steelers over the hump next year?

Let’s just say that I would not be confident enough to take the 8.5 Wins future bet that I took this year, next year. Not now, seeing the way this team finished the season, and all of the roster turnover that is about to happen. This team cannot sustain their League-Leading Defensive salary, and that money is going to have to start evening out to the Offense if this team is going to get anywhere soon. The big problem with that is that it cuts into the salaries of very important franchise players like Cam, TJ, and Minkah.

The unthinkable may happen this offseason, where one of them gets moved, or possibly Cam hangs them up. This team is going to look very different next year, and may take a step back as the shuffling of the roster begins.

All of this player movement, possible coaching changes, and even the possibility of a new starting QB next year may mean a season in decline. If the Steelers can’t figure out what’s wrong within their own walls and get this team back on track offensively, this may end up being a slide that takes a couple years to come out of. Bryan Anthony Davis said in the SCN Postgame Show following the Ravens loss that Pittsburgh is no longer a “destination” for Free Agents, and if the Free Agents don’t want to come to PIT, then it’s just going to get worse as time goes on if there is no change at the top.

I feel that the message that Coach Tomlin has gotten stale and old. Another issue is that Coach Tomlin has gotten so long in the tooth, and so comfy in his position as Head Coach, that there is no fire to keep him going because he doesn’t have anyone knocking on his door to replace him.

Ultimately, what this means, is that the same franchise patience that is so legendary in hiring 3 head coaches in 50 years, is now biting this team in the rear end. And it doesn’t look like it’s going to change anytime soon.