Tim Benz: Steelers deserve the coal they got in their stockings

Despite some incredibly gutsy football over the past two weeks, it’s coal for everyone’s stockings in the Pittsburgh Steelers locker room this holiday season.

That goes for the team’s fans, too.

The Steelers exist in their current playoff predicament for reasons well beyond what happened Sunday in New Orleans en route to a 31-28 loss.

No, they shouldn’t get punished by Santa Claus for the fumbles, the awful defense at the end of the second quarter and the moronic fake punt.

The officiating in that game was punishment enough for those bad deeds.

The reasons for a Christmas without playoff tickets under the tree (so far) will be what the Steelers failed to do weeks — even months — ago.

• They tied Cleveland before the Browns were any good.

• They lost on the road to non-playoff teams in Denver and Oakland.

• They blew a 23-7 second-half lead to the Los Angeles Chargers at home.

Those are games the Steelers should’ve, could’ve and normally have won.

When the schedule came out, even hyper-optimistic Steelers fans looked at this game against the Saints on the road and said: “That’s probably a loss.” The nature of the defeat is inconsequential in the big picture of their failures. Beating sub-.500 competition, when given the opportunity, was supposed to make up for a daunting challenge like Sunday’s.

Sure, we can blame the Chargers for failing to help the cause Saturday. They showed their typical lightning-bolt-shaped stripes by frittering away an important game against the Ravens. Los Angeles was favored to win by almost as much as the Saints were favored to beat the Steelers.

The Chargers’ remaining fan base spends all year waiting for the other shoe to drop. In 2018, it finally witnessed such a moment against the Ravens.

That result positioned the Ravens for AFC North supremacy if the Steelers lost to New Orleans.

Which, of course, they did.

Take a look around the rest of the league, though. The Cowboys won six of seven games since Nov. 12 to launch themselves to an NFC East crown.

Since Nov. 18, the Ravens beat four teams they should’ve and stole that victory in L.A.

The Eagles beat first-place teams in Houston and the Rams to stay in wild-card contention. That’s a task similar to what the Steelers were given by the schedule makers when they got New England and New Orleans back-to-back. Except Philadelphia won both of its matchups.

The Colts rallied to secure a road win against the Giants on Sunday — their eighth victory in nine games. That stretch also included triumphs over division rivals Tennessee and Houston to reverse a 1-5 start.

Also, those same Titans have won four straight to set up a winner-take-all showdown against the Colts next week for the final wild-card spot.

In other words, teams that have “needed it” the most of late have been the ones getting the job done.

Last week against New England aside, the Steelers have not.

That’s the true “grinchy” part of all this. As we discussed last week, the uplifting win over the Patriots probably will be nothing more than a footnote. It’ll be reduced to a fleeting memory. An inspirational win that happened in a non-playoff vacuum like Charlie Batch’s great upset of the Ravens in that cursed 2012 season.

We didn’t really want to admit it at the time. However, for as crucial as that win over the Patriots felt, in reality, the biggest event of the Steelers’ season was a game they watched on TV on Saturday night.

Unfortunately, the Ravens won it, and the Steelers lost out worse than the Chargers.

That’s what happens when you put your fate in the hand of other teams. Like the typically flawed Chargers. The putrid Giants. And next week, the underdog Browns.

That’s right. The Steelers still have a shot at the AFC North title. They need to beat the Bengals on Sunday, and they need the Browns to beat the Ravens. Both games kick off at 4:25 p.m. It could happen. I guess. Something similar occurred in 2015, when the Steelers squeaked in as a wild card thanks to a Week 17 win by Buffalo over the Jets.

So maybe if “Elf on the Shelf” is feeling kind, he can report back to the North Pole that the Steelers showed a lot of “nice list” qualities these past two weeks and played some really good football against top-notch competition.

Then maybe all of us in Pittsburgh will be given the gift we need but don’t deserve.

Baker Mayfield jerseys.

Merry Christmas, Pittsburgh. Ho-ho-oh, no! Not that!

Tim Benz is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Tim at tbenz@tribweb.com or via Twitter @TimBenzPGH. All tweets could be reposted. All emails are subject to publication unless specified otherwise.