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“Should Be Ashamed”- NFL Analyst SLAMS Pittsburgh Steelers Performance

Published 12/22/2020, 11:24 AM EST

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The Pittsburgh Steelers have dramatically collapsed towards the tail-end of the NFL season. While they started their season well, having gone 11-0, the wheels have seemingly fallen off over the course of the last 3 weeks. On Sunday, the Steelers suffered their third consecutive loss, this time at the hands of the Cincinnati Bengals.

At one point, the Steelers looked like Super Bowl favorites, but now, it seems like winning a playoff game will be a challenge. NFL analyst Nick Wright gave a scathing criticism of the Steelers’ performance against the Bengals, and their recent collapse. Wright believes it is time to push the panic button.

USA Today via Reuters

“It is absolutely time to mash that panic button. Let us start with the game last night. That was a shameful performance. And I mean that literally. The Steelers should be ashamed of what they did. 

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“Particularly, offensively in the first half. In the first half, the Steelers had 8 drives. 5 went 3 and out. 2 ended in a fumble, and 1 was an impossible 10-play 17-yard drive. I don’t even know how the math works there. That ended in an interception.” 

However, despite their first-half woes, the Steelers did not improve upon their performances in the second half either.

Pittsburgh Steelers in decline this season

“In the second half, they clawed back into it. They’re down 17-10, and they go 3 and out. They get it back to 24-17. When they were 17-10, the defense lets Ryan Finley go 9 plays 80 yards? Ryan Finley?

“You could be a big-time college football fan and not be familiar with Ryan Finley’s work. So both sides of the ball, unacceptable performance, and that is the micro.”

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Wright further added the risk that the Steelers run if they cannot win their next crucial games, with regards to their seeding. “The macro is this. The one seed – see you later.

“The Steelers are underdogs at home next week to the Colts. If they lose that game, that means Week 17 against the Browns is for the division. It’s in place and Steelers are the 5 seed this year.”

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Wright concluded by highlighting how drastic their lapse has been over the past weeks, calling their decline shocking. “They’re guaranteed not to be the 1, they’re highly unlikely to even be the 2.

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“And it’s in play that they fall all the way to the 5 seed. Even the biggest Steelers pessimist, I don’t think, saw this kind of fall from grace for this football team.”

It remains to be seen how the Steelers end the season. If they don’t get their act together, they run the risk of being the 5th seed at the end of the season – something that seemed almost impossible just weeks ago.

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Written by:

Aaditya Krishnamurthy

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Aaditya Krishnamurthy is an NBA & NFL journalist for EssentiallySports, before which he worked at BusinessWorld magazine. He has been a fan of Basketball for over 10 years now, since Shaquille O’Neal was a Phoenix Suns player. During his time at Symbiosis School for Liberal Arts, he started a sports magazine for the college called the Overtime Tribune and hosted the Overtime Tribune Podcast until he graduated.
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