Steelers Hope to Avoid Familiar 3-game Skid

by Bo Marchionte
@bomarchionte | College2Pro.com
Published October 27, 2025, 1:03 AM

PITTSBURGH, PA – The laboratory is out of order. The potions aren’t working, and the familiar experiment that’s carried Mike Tomlin through 18 straight non-losing seasons feels like it’s beginning to smoke and spark.

The Pittsburgh Steelers’ 35-25 loss to the Green Bay Packers wasn’t just another bad Sunday — it was a repeat screening of a movie Steelers fans know too well.

This one stung a little deeper. It marked Aaron Rodgers’ first opportunity to beat his former team in Green Bay, and he did so convincingly, handing the Steelers their second straight loss and dropping them to 4-3. With the AFC-leading 7-1 Indianapolis Colts up next, Pittsburgh stands on the brink of yet another midseason slide that’s become a Tomlin trademark.

“It’s about getting back in the lab and getting better,” Tomlin said afterward, leaning on the familiar refrain.

The problem is, the lab’s been running the same experiments for years and the results haven’t changed. Since 2018, every Steelers season under Tomlin has included at least one three-game losing streak. In fact, last year they dropped three straight from Weeks 13-15, falling from 7-4 to 7-7 while losing to two teams that entered those games with 10 losses apiece.

In 2020, it was a late-season collapse that saw the team fall from 11-0 to 12-4. In 2022, three straight losses between Weeks 2-4 had them reeling at 1-3. Even playoff years have carried the same recurring flaw. At times, the slides have stretched to four games, including the 2023 postseason run that followed a four-game losing streak a rarity for any Tomlin team, but not unheard of anymore.

The numbers tell the story clearer than any quote could. In 2018, the Steelers were 7-2-1 before unraveling to 8-5-1. In 2019, they endured two separate three-game skids, opening 0-3, then rebounding to 8-5 before finishing an even 8-8. The 2020 team started a perfect 11-0, only to finish 12-5 after a five-game freefall that derailed their season and postseason.

In 2021, Tomlin’s squad opened 1-0 but slipped quickly to 1-3, and a year later in 2022, another 1-0 start became a 1-4 disaster during a four-game skid. The 2023 Steelers were 7-4 before dropping three straight, and the 2024 group, once 10-3, collapsed under the weight of five consecutive losses, including an embarrassing playoff defeat in Baltimore.

Each streak has come with a variation of the same message from the head coach to recalibrate, refocus, and fix it in the lab. Yet the Steelers seem trapped in the same loop, a team that prides itself on never dipping below .500 but too often hovers near mediocrity instead of championship form.

“We just simply got to get a lot better,” Tomlin said. “A lot of areas, in all areas, but some really specific areas that are critical to winning. We can’t settle for field goals versus good people, and that was kind of an issue throughout. We got behind the chain once we got to scoring territory via a penalty or lost-yardage play on first down, and it was uphill from there.”

That’s become the story of Pittsburgh’s offense in recent years field goals instead of touchdowns, frustration instead of fireworks. Against Green Bay, the Steelers again bogged down in key moments, committing nine penalties and converting just three of eleven third downs. The defense, long Tomlin’s pride, failed to win the “possession downs” that define games, giving up multiple long conversions that flipped the field and sapped momentum.

“We settled for field goals too often,” Tomlin added. “They’re just not going to win close ball games, man, when you’re doing that. But we were highly penalized for the second week in a row. It hadn’t been us, but it is us, and so we certainly got to address that. And then we’re not winning enough possession downs on defense.”

For a coach whose mantra has always been “the standard is the standard,” the current standard feels painfully familiar competitive enough to stay in the race, inconsistent enough to stumble when it matters most. The Steelers’ roster has a patchwork feel, a mix of aging veterans and hopeful replacements, yet the chemistry hasn’t produced anything explosive.

The recurring losing streaks tell a story deeper than any one loss. They reveal a team that too often plateaus in the same place, clinging to Tomlin’s refusal to rebuild while struggling to evolve. The adjustments, as Tomlin said, are coming but after six straight seasons of hitting the same wall, the question is whether the lab still any new formulas has left to try.

“We got a big game coming up here in a short period of time,” Tomlin said. “We got to get in and look at this, man, and make the necessary adjustments and alterations to what it is that we’re doing.”

The problem isn’t a lack of work in the lab. It’s that the experiments keep producing the same results.

Photo Credit Frank Hyatt/College2Pro.com