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The Pittsburgh Steelers became the 13th team in the history of the NFL during the Super Bowl era to start off a season 11-0.
They did it by holding off the Baltimore Ravens at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh on a rare Wednesday game, which had been postponed multiple times because of an outbreak of Covid-19 among Ravens players.
Still, Steelers coach Mike Tomlin was not pleased with his team's performance yesterday against a weakened Ravens team. He went so far as to suggest that his team had sucked out there. Indeed, they really did not seem to play their best game, to be sure.
Yet, it was enough to keep the team perfect, at least for now.
To be sure, it should be noted that Baltimore's head coach, John Harbaugh, was very displeased with the officiating towards the end of the first half. The Ravens were very close to their end zone, and they fell just short of a touchdown. Yet, they did not get any points, either from a touchdown nor a field goal, and Harbaugh clearly felt that a delay of game penalty should have been called on Pittsburgh, which either would have given the Ravens another shot at a touchdown from just a few years out, or at least would have allowed them to get a field goal, which would have made the game a lot closer, and perhaps changed the complexion of the game in the second half.
In any case, all of that it basically a moot point now, after the fact. The officiating was not impressive. But at the end of the day, the Steelers won to improve to 11-0 for the first time in franchise history.
Two teams back in the eighties and early nineties, Miami in 1984 and Washington in 1991, also started their season 11-0 before ultimately losing their 12th games. The other teams to reach that mark since then all won beyond that point. Miami advanced to the Super Bowl after their 1984 season, but lost. Washington went to the Super Bowl, and dominated Buffalo. Both teams had finished the regular season with 14-2 marks.
Going back a bit in history, here are the fortunes of some of the other teams to have started off the season this long with undefeated marks. The 1985 Chicago Bears went 12-0 before suffering their only defeat of the season. They went on to win the Super Bowl, and are often still considered the most dominant team in NFL history. The 1998 Denver Broncos were coming off a Super Bowl championship season with hopes of repeating, when they raced off to a perfect 13-0 start, before losing to at the Giants and then at Miami in consecutive weeks. But they finished the season 14-2 and ultimately repeated as Super Bowl champs.
However, teams that got off to undefeated starts in the 21st century have not fared so well. In 2005, the Indianapolis Colts got off to a 13-0 start, and finished the season at 14-2. But they lost to the Steelers in the divisional round of the playoffs. Two years later, the New England Patriots actually became only the second team in NFL history to complete an undefeated regular season. They did advance to the Super Bowl and very nearly won, but were thwarted by a brilliant final drive by the New York Giants, ending their bid for a perfect season. In 2009, two teams started off with long undefeated streaks. The Colts went 14-0, before dropping their last two games, yet they still made it to the Super Bowl. There, they met the New Orleans Saints, who had also begun the season with a long 13-0 unbeaten mark, before dropping their last three regular season games, but they went to the Super Bowl and beat the Colts once there. In 2011, the defending Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers started off 13-0, and finished the regular season with an impressive 15-1 mark. But they lost to the eventual Super Bowl champion Giants in the divisional round. In 2015, the Carolina Panthers raced off to a 14-0 start, finishing the season at 15-1, and reached the Super Bowl. Once there, however, they played the worst game of the season, as the Denver Broncos dominated in the big game.
If you are keeping score, that means that six teams have reached unbeaten records of at least 11-0 (in fact, in each case, the teams went all the way to 13-0), but there is only one Super Bowl winner among them: the 2009 New Orleans Saints. The 2007 New England Patriots came very close, again, but fell just short. Otherwise, only the 2009 Colts and 2015 Panthers actually reached the Super Bowl. The 2005 Colts and 2011 Packers did not even win a playoff game.
To his credit, Ben Roethliberger became only the fourth NFL quarterback to have multiple winning streaks of at least 11 games in his career. He also achieved that with the 2004 Pittsburgh Steelers, who ended that regular season with 14 straight wins. They would add one more win in the postseason, as well. Peyton Manning and Tom Brady have also done that multiple times each in the 21st century, with Manning having done it in 2005, another such streak from the end of the 2006 season and into the 2007 season, and then again in 2009. Brady managed to do that, from the late 2001 season through the beginning of the 2002 season, then again with a winning streak that still ranks as the longest of any team in NFL history when the Patriots won their final 15 games of the 2003 season, including the playoffs and the Super Bowl, and then won the first six games of the 2004 season. The Patriots also started off 18-0 in 2007, before losing the Super Bowl. Finally, he and New England won the three playoff contests, also including the Super Bowl, in 2014, and started the next season by winning their first 10 games. It should be noted that Joe Montana managed to do it, as well, winning the final eight regular season games in the 1984 season, and then sweeping their way through the playoffs and winning the Super Bowl. Montana's 49ers did that again by winning their last five regular season games and three playoff games, including the Super Bowl, in 1989, and then starting the 1990 season off with ten straight wins, for what was then an NFL winning streak of 18 straight games, tying two other teams for the most consecutive wins at the time.
So, that is where the Pittsburgh Steelers stand right now. They next host Washington, then go up to Buffalo to face the Bills in what might be their biggest test in hopes of remaining undefeated. Then, they go to Cincinnati, before hosting the Colts. Their final game of this regular season could be a tough test as well, as they visit the Browns in Cleveland.
Let's see what happens!
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