If you have ever listened to my “Let’s Ride” podcast every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, you’ve heard me give plenty of warnings to Pittsburgh Steelers fans leading up to the preseason.

Don’t fall for the same tricks we fell for in 2023.

If you prefer another analogy…don’t drink the Kool-Aid.

If you recall, and most fans who paid attention will, the 2023 preseason was nearly perfect. To be honest, I’ve dubbed that preseason the “Pristine Preseason”. While I can’t speak for you, the reader, I can speak for myself and how I was thoroughly convinced the Steelers had assembled an offense which would compete with the upper echelon units in the NFL.

Then Week 1 came, and we all took a sucker punch to the gut. It was just one performance, but we all saw the same game. This offense wasn’t nearly what we thought it would be.

Leading up to the 2024 preseason, I told myself I wasn’t going to let preseason results cloud my judgement with the team, but I always threw in the caveat of those preseason results working both ways. What did I mean? If the team wins, and is successful, I’m not about to book hotel rooms for a Super Bowl parade in February. Likewise, if the Steelers laid an egg in Week 1, I wasn’t about to go find the nearest bridge to jump from.

Well, with the Week 1 Texans game in the books, I think most of us would have called the game a flop, not the Spencer Anderson variety from Friday night.

Grade the acting job 😂 #Steelers pic.twitter.com/kEDZiHILgQ

— Jeff Hartman (@JHartman_PIT) August 10, 2024

So it’s now time for me to practice what I was preaching the past few weeks, to not overreact to the negative plays which were on display at Acrisure Stadium.

The fumbles, oh the fumbles.

The missed tackles, oh the missed tackles.

Take a deep breathe, let it out, and chalk it up to Week 1 of the preseason. As I used to tell my teams when I was a head coach, never get too high, and never get too low. Try to stay even-keel, and keep it between the lines.

If you pay attention to social media you’ll see plenty of narratives being tossed around about the Steelers. Most of those narratives are about Justin Fields and his inability to field a snap. But what most of those narratives aren’t discussing, not just about Fields but the team’s overall performance, was how there should be some give-and-take for the first week of the preseason. I won’t even discuss the fact the Texans had played in the Hall of Fame Game last week and have an extra week of camp/practice under their belts. No, I’m just going to let this game go like water on a duck’s back.

Now, if these type of mistakes and miscues continue into Week 2, then that is an entirely different discussion, but even then results should be taken with a grain of salt.

Did I want another perfect preseason? The honest answer is ‘no’. I wanted to see some struggle and a performance which will have the team working hard to improve before the Bills come to town.

You know what they say, “Ask, and you shall receive.”

Now it’s time for the Steelers to start improving, and use the upcoming preseason game as a stepping stone for the regular season, when games actually count.