Seventy-six different players have started a playoff game for the Pittsburgh Steelers during their six-game postseason losing streak.
The skid has endured through four players who started at quarterback, 12 at linebacker and 15 on the offensive line.
Arthur Smith became the fifth man to call plays for the Steelers during their run of postseason futility that is at almost nine years and counting.
Even if there are few constants in the Steelers’ stretch of six straight playoff losses, there is at least one obvious overarching trend that binds them.
Slow starts.
As the Steelers prepare to host the Houston Texans at 8:15 p.m. Monday in the AFC Wild-Card playoff round, they do so after being outscored 73-0 over the combined first quarters of their past six playoff games.
It would be an understatement to posit that the Steelers need to get off to a better start than they have over their postseason games ranging from the 2016 season’s AFC championship through last year’s wild-card loss to the Baltimore Ravens.
But it likewise would be an overstatement to say that the Steelers are hyper-fixating on reversing that trend out of an acknowledgment of their early-game struggles in playoff games that ended their 2016, 2017, 2020, 2021, 2023 and 2024 seasons.
“Every week,” Smith said recently, “when you hear the announcers say something like, ‘You need to get out to a fast start,’ it’s kind of like, ‘No (crap).’
“I don’t think anybody’s ever said that. I’ve never been a part of a meeting since the time I was a 9-year-old playing football (saying), ‘Hey, let’s start slow and ease into this one.’ ”
That’s certainly so, even if watching the Steelers over their past half-dozen postseason outings might make you believe otherwise.
Consider the Steelers’ aggregate possession chart over the six first quarters of their playoff games since the January 2017 AFC title game loss to the New England Patriots:
• 19 possessions, zero points, 164 net yards (8.6 per drive), 10 first downs (0.52 per drive)
• 13 punts, 3 interceptions, 2 lost fumbles, 1 turnover on downs
Smith was only the play-caller for one of those dreadful starts that comprise those ugly numbers: when the Steelers punted on every first-half possession and had only two first downs while trailing 21-0 at halftime en route to a 28-14 defeat at the Ravens last January.
But while Smith falls back on the cheeky retort that he surely isn’t trying to engineer slow starts, what he has done is preside over the Steelers scoring points on more than half of their game-opening drives this season.
“Strategically, sometimes, it’s just converting the first third down when you get that third down early,” Smith said. “Sometimes it’s just the small details that make a play successful or not. Yeah, we’d like to start every game like we did in New England or the first Baltimore game, and that’s a priority we work towards every week.”
Smith referenced a Week 3 game at the Patriots in which the Steelers’ first two drives ended with touchdowns, as well as when the Steelers scored 17 points over the first four possessions Dec. 7 at the Ravens. Each was a win.
But as much as getting off to a fast start tends to be associated with offense, a defense can establish a similar momentum early in a game. Not unlike the ghastly offensive stats from the Steelers’ past six playoff appearances, the defense’s numbers are just as bad — if not worse.
Over the first four drives of each of the Steelers’ past six playoff games, opponents have managed seven points more than half the time: 13 touchdowns, as opposed to nine punts, one field goal and one interception.
Defensive lineman Isaiahh Loudermilk is one of only seven players still with the Steelers who have played in each of the team’s past three playoff losses. Four of those holdovers since 2021 are from the defense.
Loudermilk, who is currently out because of an ankle injury, said there is an intangible emotion aspect of either seizing momentum — or letting it slip away — early during playoff games.
“You go out there, the excitement’s high,” the five-year veteran said. “You’re not planning on losing; you’re planning on dominating. And then when a team can go up on you quick, that can really bring the spirits down fast. That has happened to us a couple of these playoff games. You go in thinking highly of yourselves and highly of your team, and all of a sudden they go up on a quick lead, and that can really bring it down.”
The Steelers experienced that deflated feeling when they at one point trailed 36-9 nine years ago in New England. Or when they fell down 21-0 to the Jacksonville Jaguars in the divisional round a year later, or 28-0 to the Cleveland Browns during the 2020 season’s wild-card round.
Throw in a 35-7 deficit at the Kansas City Chiefs in a wild-card loss four years ago, falling behind 21-0 both at the Buffalo Bills in January 2024 and in another wild-card game at Baltimore last year, that makes for an unthinkable aggregate deficit total of 162-16 over the Steelers’ past six playoff games.
Teryl Austin has been on the Steelers’ staff for each of the past four playoff losses, and he’s been coordinator for the defeats at the ends of the past two seasons.
“We’ve just kind of (got to) figure it out, ‘Hey, listen, how do we work on these things in practice?’ ” Austin said of starting Monday’s game strong. “ ‘What do we do to try to give ourselves the opportunity to get off to a really good start and get some momentum, give our offense a short field?’ That’s really what we’re looking for.
“We’ll try to do that this week. Because it is important. You want to get off. You want to have good momentum. You want to have good vibes to start the game. You don’t ever want to be fighting uphill battle, so to speak. But if we have to, we will.”
Steelers radio color commentator Max Starks knows about this phenomenon as well as anybody — and not just from his five years as part of the Steelers Audio Network.
As a first-year starting offensive tackle in 2005, the No. 6 seed Steelers were underdogs at the No. 1 Indianapolis Colts and No. 2 Denver Broncos during road games in the divisional and conference championship rounds.
They jumped out to respective 14-0 and 24-3 leads in those games, advancing to Super Bowl XL, where they claimed the franchise’s fifth of six Super Bowl rings.
“Any team, you want to take momentum early in a game,” said Starks, who on Thursday broadcast the College Football Playoff semifinal for ESPN Radio. “The difference between the 2005 team and this team is that they’ll actually be playing a home game. So, the good thing is, as far as crowd momentum and energy, you’ll get it right off the start from a home game.”
Starks also noted that, as he put it, “every (season) is a silo.” Just because the 2016 Steelers or 2021 Steelers or even last year’s team got caught flatfooted out of the gates of their playoff openers, that doesn’t mean the 2025 Steelers will.
“Every year is its own standalone state,” Starks said. “You don’t get into the, ‘Aw, man, here we go again,’-type of situation because so many are new for it. There are different players, different leaders, different schemes. They’ll try to start fast because they want to start fast — not because they lost a couple times (in the playoffs by way of) not starting fast.”
As Smith said, no team efforts to fall behind early. A crisp start to Monday’s game on both sides of the ball would be of great aid to the Steelers’ quest to get their first playoff win since Barack Obama was still in office.
But the Steelers fell behind 10-0 early during last week’s division-clinching game against Baltimore and came back to win. On the other side of it, they also blew four halftime leads this season.
“I’m not opposed to getting off to a fast start,” coach Mike Tomlin said. “But a fast start or a slow start doesn’t ensure us of anything positively or negatively. I just think we understand that, but you still don’t want to minimize the importance of bursting out of the locker room in a single-elimination tournament.”
