They say your record is your record this time of year, but I don’t necessarily believe that.

The Steelers may have walked into Acrisure Stadium with a 10-6 mark on Saturday night, but they hadn’t been playing like a 10-win team since they defeated the Browns at that same venue on December 8.

Pittsburgh faced off against the Bengals in its regular-season finale, having lost three straight games and not looking all that great in the process.

Cincinnati came into the evening on a four-game winning streak and needed to win its Week 18 matchup in order to keep its slim playoff hopes alive. The Steelers, on the other hand, clinched a postseason berth on December 15. The possibility of capturing the AFC North crown went up in smoke when the Ravens did the predictable earlier in the day and easily dispatched the hapless Browns at M&T Bank Stadium. Would the Steelers be motivated enough to wrap up the fifth seed and a trip to Houston on Super Wild Card Weekend?

I don’t know, but they sure didn’t play like they were motivated in a 19-17 loss that really shouldn’t have been close enough to come down to a comedy of errors by Russell Wilson and Co. on the game’s last serious possession.

How bad were the Steelers in their regular-season curtain-jerker? They seemed barely concerned with gaining any yards on offense until the fourth quarter. In fact, if it wasn’t for the urgency they showed over their final three possessions, they may not even have come close to accumulating the 193 total yards that they ultimately wound up with.

As for the defense? It was pretty good…I guess. True, it struggled early on and allowed a touchdown on the Bengals’ first possession, but it was more than formidable from there and limited Cincinnati’s high-powered offense to four field goals the rest of the way.

But don’t you get tired of this weird thing you do where you make excuses for the defense while placing most of the blame on the offense? I get it, the offense deserved most of the blame for the loss. It was horrible. In addition to not being able to move the ball, it couldn’t move the ball on weighty down, like near the end of the first half when it had three solid chances to pick up one yard and failed to do so each time.

The Bengals had a 10-7 lead at that moment and quickly made it 13-7 when Pittsburgh gifted them possession at its own 37 following its third and final futile attempt to pick up a yard.

That could have been the difference in the game. Then again, the Steelers could have handled their final drive better. Instead, Wilson decided to run for a couple of yards and keep the clock turning when a smarter option would have been to simply chuck the football into the stands and save precious seconds. Then, there was the missed opportunity to connect on the out-and-up route that receiver George Pickens successfully pulled off. That could have led to a game-winning touchdown, but it surely would have set up an attempt at a game-winning field goal.

Then, there was the drop by tight end Pat Freiermuth on a perfectly thrown slant pass on fourth and 12. But the Steelers had no timeouts and 15 seconds remaining at the start of the play. Freiermuth, who was positioned far away from the sidelines, would have had to haul ass to make it out of bounds before time expired.

I wouldn’t have liked his chances.

How about the Steelers’ chances in the upcoming wildcard playoff game at Baltimore? Pittsburgh will now be the sixth seed and face off against the team that blew past it to capture the AFC North Division over the final month of the season.

Do the Steelers have any sort of chance against Baltimore? You might say they don’t because of the loss, but would things have felt much different had they found a way to defeat Cincinnati and clinch a trip to Houston?

The Steelers picked the worst time to play their worst football of the season–the final month.

Back to that weird thing you do where you pat the defense on the head and send the offense to bed without its supper; the Steelers are a team, and the defense hasn’t exactly looked great during this four-game losing streak, either. The defense only gets a pass because the offense seems so incapable of passing the football at the moment. Also, it can’t run it all that well, either.

Oh yeah, and what about the special teams? What about the coaching? What about everything involving this football team that you love so much that you want to punch it or cry (I’d go with the second option)?

Anyway, I was hoping the Steelers would have been inspired to show the world they weren’t limping into the postseason, but not only are they limping, but they look like a team that will show up to Baltimore on a silver platter.

I’ll find a way to get excited about the Steelers matchup vs. the Ravens before next weekend, but until I do, I just have one final thing to say about the Steelers state of affairs heading into the postseason:

Yikes.