With Thursday night’s 21-18 defeat to the now 3-10 New England Patriots, and last week’s loss to the lowly Cardinals, the Steelers have earned the dubious distinction of becoming the first team in NFL history with a winning record to lose consecutive games to opponents who were at least eight games below .500. That misery underscores what has turned a once-promising season into one that rivals some of the darkest I’ve experienced in my forty-plus years as a Steelers fan. The team is in disarray, the fan base is angry, and there’s no quick fix on the horizon. Where, then, do they go from here?

Fortunes change quickly in the NFL. Particularly this year, when it’s hard to hang your hat on any team or any theme on a consistent basis. The only consistent thing about the league has been its inconsistency. A team is up one week, then down the next, and vice versa. It’s tempting to say that the Steelers, with nine days off before their next game in Indianapolis, have time to lick their physical and emotional wounds, regroup and rebound. A win against the Colts would keep them in playoff contention, and anything is possible from there.

But that feels disingenuous. Even if Pittsburgh does rebound, it’s impossible to take them seriously as a playoff team. There are just too many holes. The quarterback play is sub-par, no matter who’s taking snaps. The scheme is redundant and unimaginative. As evidence, Pittsburgh ran the same toss play over and over against New England despite the fact it never gained more than a few yards. They criminally underutilized George Pickens, and the decision to launch a prayer to Diontae Johnson on the 4th-and-2 play that essentially ended the game was an act of coaching malpractice. Then there were the communication issues, the wasted timeouts and the illegal formation penalties. As for the latter, every time Chuks Okorafor reports as eligible I anticipate a flag. These are penalties decent middle school teams don’t commit. The Steelers commit them religiously..

The story on defense isn’t much better. Granted, the defense has been devastated by injuries. But they’ve forgotten how to cover a tight end, they’ve displayed a discouraging lack of pursuit to the football, and their pass rush has largely disappeared. In recent weeks, they’ve made Dorian Thompson-Robinson and Bailey Zappe look like legitimate NFL quarterbacks, which they are not.

The coaching is off as well. I’ve been a big Mike Tomlin fan over the years, but after holding this team together for most of the season, he appears to have lost his touch. Stories swirled in the wake of the Matt Canada dismissal that one of the big reasons Tomlin urged Art Rooney II to pull the plug was because he was losing the locker room. Firing Canada does not seem to have helped him reclaim it. The lack of passion with which they’ve played the past two weeks, and the poor body language on and off the sideline, suggests a team that may be tuning its head coach out. One of Tomlin’s strengths has always been his ability to motivate. If that has waned, the team’s problems run deeper than its quarterback or its scheme.

Tomlin is also being undercut by a coaching staff that doesn’t appear to be up to the task. It’s unlikely Canada will ever find a job in the NFL again, and certainly not as a coordinator. If Pittsburgh were to let the rest of their assistants go, how many would be hired elsewhere? A few of the position coaches might land a lateral job somewhere. But none are considered innovators or effective game-planners, and against some of the better coaching staffs in the league, they’ve simply been overmatched.

That was evident against New England. On offense, the Patriots exploited Pittsburgh’s patchwork linebacking corps with their passing game to build a 21-3 halftime lead. The Steelers adjusted in the second half, but the damage had been done. On defense, they confused Mitchell Trubisky with their coverage disguises and designs. Coordinator Steve Belichick seemed to know what was coming from Pittsburgh’s offense and had no problem dialing up answers. The Steelers, meanwhile, did little to make New England seem uncomfortable. Tomlin is now 3-10 all-time against Bill Belichick. While it’s no sin to lose to Belichick, Pittsburgh has lost at home the past two years to bad Patriots’ teams quarterbacked by Zappe and Mac Jones. Long story short, the staff just isn’t good enough. Whether the construction of that staff is Tomlin’s doing or the product of AR2 not willing to spend the money to chase bigger names is hard to know. Either way, it’s as much of the problem as the talent on the field.

So back to the question posed in the title of this article. What now? In the short term, Tomlin has to find a way to avoid this from spiraling out of control. He’s rallied his troops late in the season before. Now, he must do it again. Only this time that chore will be much more difficult. He doesn’t have Ben Roethlisberger to lean on. Nor a top-tier defense. Nor a respected coaching staff. Nor a locker room ready to run through a wall for him. Given the circumstances, it’s not hard to imagine the Steelers losing out and finishing 7-10. Avoiding that disaster will take the best of Tomlin’s coaching ability.

Whether Tomlin rallies the team or not, Pittsburgh faces serious questions this off-season. Who should they hire to replace Canada? Is Kenny Pickett the answer at quarterback? What should they do with their young but often disgruntled wide receivers? How do they upgrade their weaknesses on defense, which include the inside linebacker and corner positions? The Steelers will have ample money in free agency to find answers to some of these questions. And they’ve drafted well the past two years, which means there’s a promising young core in place. Really, then, it’s about the coordinator and the quarterback.

For me, those two are intwined. I don’t believe the system in place is one that has allowed Pickett to develop properly. He misses open targets, yes. He is antsy in the pocket. He is not aggressive enough. But as we saw with Trubisky last night, the scheme and the teaching is as much a problem as the players themselves. If the Steelers plan to go forward with Pickett next year — which I believe they do — they must hire a coordinator who can help him progress. More than their draft class, their free agent signings or what they do with Tomlin, getting it right at the offensive coordinator position is the biggest box they must check.

If that forces ownership to open their checkbook and scribble down some bigger numbers than they’re normally comfortable with, so be it. Otherwise, they’ll simply be rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. And that will take the players, the fan base, even Mike Tomlin, right down with them.