Yes, pitssburg is heating up with their 1 win in 7 games on a questionable TD catch in the last second. F the steelers, the aint got sh!t this year.
I am not sure I agree with this thinking. For one thing, Pittsburgh has not gotten the lucky breaks like in the past--last week their luck finally came in. All of their players had already accepted not going to the playoffs, yet got a ton of luck last week and are right back in the race. That will do wonders for their confidence and renewed swagger.
Their 5 game losing streak (not 6) came down to 4th quarter and OT poor play when it mattered (sound familiar?)
All of their games were decided by one scoring play--to me, that doesn't exactly reek of a team who's been playing poorly. If they had gotten totally blown out in a couple etc, then I'd agree. But they didn't, they lost very close divisional games to CIN, CLE, and BAL. The games against KC and OAK were late defensive collapses, I'll give you that, but they were probably rare occurances. In other words, I wouldn't go betting money that KC or OAK beat Pittsburgh again.
Regardless, they still have a heavy pressure defense that would certainly cause us problems. On offense, they have a TON of weapons. Hines Ward may be an ass, but he is a very good overall football player, and is a great possession receiver. Santonio Holmes can kill you on those 20 yd throws, and go deep at any time. TE Heath Miller is one of the best at his position, and a favorite of Roethlisburger. Even the rookie Mike Wallace is getting off over there, as he has become reliable and a deep threat too. With Big Ben being very hard to take down + his great scrambling ability to make big plays, I just don't see how our no-pressure defense can actually get to him. The way we beat PIT in the past was great pressure, causing turnovers, and big plays on offense. The formula has now changed, and I just don't see our secondary keeping up with their SB caliber offense. This is all without even bringing up Rashard Mendenhall, who is running very well of late.
PIT was somewhat down, and had a streak of bad luck. Now that they realize how easy it can be to get a playoff berth, I expect them to be back to top form. Think about it, they had 5 things happen in their playoff favor last week, now they're back from the dead--so to speak.
I'd MUCH rather match up against a mostly run, conservative offense team like DEN, MIA, or even BAL. We would match up well with all of those teams, IMO. The teams like PIT, SD, IND can take each other down. If there's a team who can beat IND or SD, and has in the past yr, it's still PIT.
I respect your opinion, these are simply my reasons for not wanting to play them. I wouldn't count PIT out because they are very dangerous, and have now gotten through their unlucky stretch of losing some close games.
