The Steelers are 7-4 heading into their bye week and currently occupy the sixth seed in the AFC playoffs if the season were to end right now. It is this point in the season that I personally find so exciting because I simply love the math and computations and all of it behind seeing who makes it into the elite 6 and makes the playoffs. There are just so many scenarios so for a math guy who is also a football guy this is bliss. One of my favorite sports websites is the NFL Yahoo Playoff Generator, whose time is nearly upon me to use it but not quite because you can only predict Week 13-17 and it is still Week 12, so while I can pick who I think the Steelers will win and lose to, I cannot accurately pick seedings and who will make it and who won’t because there is no surefire way to pick winners in Week 12. Check out the Playoff Generator for yourself! (You lucky Eagles fans, it actually has you guys in the 2 seed when you first go onto it).
I would say that I like where the team is right now even though it has the hardest remaining schedule in the AFC North, which is already tightly packed. The Steelers need to beat the Bengals both times they play them to basically secure a playoff spot with a AFC North Crown, and it would most likely be the third or fourth seed courtesy of thr New England Patriots and Denver Broncos. I would guess third seed because I do not think that the Indianapolis Colts, the future winners of the AFC South, will have a better record than us if we win the AFC North, and we own the tiebreaker against the Colts by virtue of the Steelers’ 51-34 win over them in Week 8.
The team recently released backup running back LeGarrette Blount in a very contradictory move that has left the depth chart for running backs behind Le’Veon Bell very small.Dri Archer, the speedy rookie drafted in the third round of the draft, is the only true running back who I would want to see out on the field if Bell were to have to sit out or (God forbid) got hurt.
Archer was injured earlier on in the season and is still a rookie with minimal experience so even he is not a very good option for tailback if Bell cannot perform. If Archer were to become our main source of running, then that would put a lot of offensive pressure back on Ben Roethlisberger who has, unfortunately, reached human level again and is no longer a TD-producing god. I think we have a solid chance of going to the playoffs and maybe even making it to the later rounds of the playoffs if we play like a complete team. Go ‘Lers.