Patriots vs Steelers: Looking Ahead to the NFL Game of the Year
Winning home field advantage in the AFC could come down to more than just who wins their head-to-head match-up.
The NFL season is a study in contradiction. On one hand, it has by far the shortest regular season of any of the professional sports leagues. Heck, even the 12-team WNBA’s regular season lasts a bit longer (131 days) than the NFL’s (115). On the other hand, no other sport demands so much physically or perhaps even mentally from their athletes, so the shorter season is almost merciful in that sense. The NFL’s potent, concentrated season means that each regular season game is so much more significant than regular season games in other sports. With so many games that matter going on at the same time each week, there really is no equivalent to “Football Sunday” in any other professional sport. (Perhaps the only thing that tops the spectator experience of Football Sundays are the early rounds of March Madness, where multiple single-elimination games are on simultaneously all throughout the day. For sheer drama it doesn’t get any better than that.)
So with only four more Football Sundays left, we should be able to have a grasp on how good each team is going into the last quarter of the season, and then focus in on their road ahead to figure out which team could have an advantage. The last four games has historically been a pivot point in the NFL- they call it “December football” for a reason. It’s where the NFL wheat gets separated from the chaff. Tom Brady’s career record in December? 55–10. The Steelers record in December since 2013? An NFL best 15–2. Something has to give, which means the race for the top seed in the AFC is going to be a barnburner. So let’s get into the weeds with the remaining schedule of the two teams, and see if we can learn anything about what to expect.
AFC TOP SEED: PATRIOTS vs STEELERS
New England Patriots remaining schedule:
at Miami, at Pittsburgh, home vs Buffalo, home vs Jets
It might come as a surprise to know that last year’s win snapped a three game losing streak for the Patriots in Miami. Over his long storied career, Miami is the one place that has given Brady trouble: He’s 7–8 lifetime there. Of course being the competitor he is, Brady knowing he’s under .500 there will only give him more motivation to play lights-out, and this Miami team is struggling to be consistent. Jay Cutler has to be better then he’s been all year for them to have a shot, but the Dolphins’ disastrous performances in their three previous prime-time games this year doesn’t install much confidence in that happening. Add the fact that the Pats are playing their best football right now, and even without Gronk an upset here is highly unlikely.
So is this a trap game for the Patriots or not? I have zero worries about a Belichick-coached team overlooking any opponent, as history shows that they put their foot on the throat of lesser opponents rather than play down to them. (Are you paying attention Mike Tomlin?) However, there could be one silver bullet: If the Bills lose to the Colts on Sunday, The Pats will clinch the AFC East before putting their pads on Monday. Maybe, just maybe that could sap their motivation a little. Again though, Belichick has been around the block more than a few times. He knows the game still matters, and I severely doubt Miami can play well enough to win regardless. That being said, +11 points for a home team is pretty enticing if the right factors (specifically a Bills loss) come into play.
Speaking of the Bills, if Brady has struggled (relatively speaking) in Miami, then there probably isn’t a more opposite way to describe how he’s performed in his career against Buffalo at home. Brady has simply owned the Bills in Foxborough, going 13–1 in his career. His only loss? The 2014 season finale where he was rested during the 2nd half. (I’m sure it burns him a little that Brady is credited with a “loss” there just because he started the game.) This Bills team is not playing well coming down the stretch, so it’s hard to see anything other than another Patriots win come week 16.
Conversely, the Jets are playing a lot better and right now are a much tougher out than the Bills. Could the Jets be playing for something when they match-up with the Patriots in the final game of the year? The Jets are on the road facing a reeling Broncos team this week, then go to the Saints, then play at home to the surging Chargers. That’s three of their final four on the road. Strike one. Then they need to win two of those first three games to realistically even have a sniff at the playoffs in week 17. Strike two. Then if the Patriots needed to beat the Jets in week 17, that only adds to the mismatch. Strike three. So it’s far more likely that the Jets won’t have much to play for when they play the Pats (beyond trying to save Todd Bowles’ job and knocking off their most bitter rival), which leads us to the conclusion that the Pats will run the table on their non-Steelers opponents. So how will the Steelers do?
Pittsburgh Steelers remaining schedule:
home vs Baltimore, home vs New England, at Houston, home vs Cleveland
Unfortunately, I don’t have the same confidence that Mike Tomlin’s team won’t play down to their opponent or fall into a trap game, because that’s just what the Steelers do. Yes, the Steelers are currently on a seven game winning streak, but that has included three pulled-the-win-out-of-my-butt games against teams that don’t have a winning record. Their saving grace? The Steelers play the Ravens, who are the only team that’s more of a bitter rival to them than the Patriots. There’s really no such thing as a “trap” game when the Ravens come to town. Unlike the Dolphins, the Ravens are playing well enough right now that their best effort could beat the Steelers, who will really miss Ryan Shazier. That being said, the Steelers will clinch the AFC North with a win, and the way the Steelers play so much better at home leads me to believe that the Steelers will take care of business against the Ravens in another AFC North slugfest. So I don’t see this week being the trap game for the Steelers, but even if they did lose, by beating the Patriots the next week, the Steelers would be tied at 11–3 with the Patriots but would go back into the top seed by virtue of the head-to-head tiebreak.
So in looking at the match-up against the Patriots, the scheduling gods have blessed the Steelers with two straight home games, while the Pats will be on the 3rd leg of a rare back-to-back-to-back road trip. If this game were played in Foxborough, I’d struggle to see any scenario where the Steelers would beat the Pats, given how each team is playing right now. The Pats are not the Bengals. They won’t totally, utterly fall apart in the second half if they take a big lead. A lot about this game hinges on something we haven’t really seen this year from the Steelers: Will they finally play a defense that can stop the Patriots’ short passing attack? Apparently Joe Haden is doing everything he can to be back for this game, and the Steelers need all the help they can get right now, as they have uncharacteristically given up tons of big plays in the past few weeks. (Brandin Cooks could play a huge factor in the game, especially if Chris Hogan can’t go.)
Brady has owned the Steelers almost as much as he has the Bills, going 7–2 in the regular season and 3–0 in the playoffs. I can’t help but think back to that last loss in 2011 as a possible template for a Steelers win here, because this was the last time the Steelers and the Patriots met in Hines field and Ben Roethlisberger actually played.
In this game, the Steelers threw their old defensive gameplans out the window and went almost exclusively with man-to-man coverage, which threw the Patriots for a little bit of a loop. It also helped immensely that the Steelers grinded the game out with long sustained drives, keeping Brady off the field by having the ball a whopping 39 minutes, virtually two-to-one edge in time of possession. (Interestingly enough, Antonio Brown caught his first career TD pass in this game. Watch the video and try not to crack up at Steve Mariucci’s reaction to the first-ever Antonio Brown celebration dance that we all know well by now.)
Losing the AFC Championship game the way they did stuck with the Steelers last year, and I have to believe they learned from their mistakes. All indications are that they deliberated how they will gameplan against the Patriots as far back as the offseason, even going so far as to make personnel decisions based on it. Therefore, I give the slight edge to a Steelers team that will likely be a 3 or 4 point home dog going into the game. To me, all the variables or intangibles are in place for an upset. If the Steelers don’t win, then the race for the top seed (and likely the AFC championship) is effectively over.
If the Steelers do win, here is where it can get interesting. Imagining the scenario where the Steelers avenge last year’s humiliating loss to the Pats, they then travel to Houston to play on Christmas day. Can you say letdown game? (SIDE NOTE: The NFL decided it was a good idea to schedule two games on Christmas this year. The three games on Thanksgiving is a hard enough sell, because at least you can play the “tradition” card. Now doubling the amount of games on Christmas from last year? Are they trying to cause divorce rates to go up?) Houston is a tricky team with a good home field advantage, and will likely be up for playing in a nationally televised game. Considering the propensity the Steelers have for playing down to their opponent, I can totally see the Steelers blowing this game if they were to beat the Patriots the week before.
That tells us that this week’s Steelers-Ravens tilt has more hidden implications than you realize, which will only add to the intrigue of what is still the NFL’s best rivalry. It’s not that much of a stretch to imagine the Steelers blowing the Ravens game, beating the Patriots, then blowing the Texans game, which would put them back at square one. That’s the most Steeler-y outcome I can think of to the end of the season.
This just goes to show you how hard it is to be the equal or better of the Patriots. If the Steelers want the top seed, they have virtually no room for error. That means that they have to go no less than 13–3 AND beat the Patriots in the regular season. As the saying goes, if you want to be the best, you have to beat the best. And then they likely have to beat the best all over again in the playoffs. No one ever said it was going to be easy.
Alex Brigandi has been a in-game reporter with STATS LLC since 2002 and has analyzed the NFL from a betting perspective in Las Vegas since 2007. You can contact him on twitter with any questions, comments, or syndication requests.
