The 2021 Pittsburgh Steelers are in last place in the AFC North after three games.
This is a sharp contrast to the 2020 Pittsburgh Steelers who, in the midst of a pandemic, riddled off 11 straight wins until their 11-0 perfect record was finally broken.
The AFC North is very competitive.
In 2020, three of its four teams went to the playoffs.
Besides the Steelers, the Baltimore Ravens and Cleveland Browns were playoff teams.
That left the Cincinnati Bengals with injured quarterback Joe Burrow the odd man out.
The Bengals have Burrow back and a lot of upside.
The Steelers do not have much upside which may be a bigger problem for them than their current 1-2 record.
Their problems may be more than one, but the biggest is the quarterback position.
I said in the offseason that both the Steelers and Ben Roethlisberger will regret giving it another go by November. I may have been early.
— ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) September 26, 2021
Here is why.
Ben Roethlisberger Is Not Looking Good
Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is a future first ballot Hall-of-Famer.
He came back from an injury-shortened 2019 season and looked great in 2020 until the final stretch of the season.
Then, he looked every bit of his age; he turned 39 in the offseason.
Roethlisberger’s rocky start is of utmost concern because there are 17 games in the regular season for the first time.
Add to that, he is already battling a pectoral injury in the early stages of this season; that is a tough area to heal as an NFL quarterback in the starting lineup every week.
Roethlisberger has completed 64 percent of his passes, 83 out of 130.
He has matched his touchdown throws with interceptions; there are three of each.
Roethlisberger is averaging between five and seven yards per pass.
That is not moving the chains.
Neither is the repeated sacks he is taking; he has eight of those through three games.
Rodney Harrison on Ben Roethlisberger: “He looks extremely old.”
— ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) September 26, 2021
Backup Quarterbacks Are Not The Answer Either
Colin, this is not the prettiest of truths, but it’s the truth: as much as Ben Roethlisberger is no longer the exact same QB #Steelers fans love and extol and long for, he is *still* the best QB on this roster. He is still the best option. https://t.co/lE33VOsSHy
— Aditi Kinkhabwala (@AKinkhabwala) September 27, 2021
Mason Rudolph has played here and there and has been okay.
And then there is Dwayne Haskins.
Would the Steelers make a bold move to bench Roethlisberger for one of these guys for the long haul?
It is hard to say, but if the team continues to languish, they may have to.
Other Significant Players Are Also Injured
The Steelers have not had T.J. Watt, Alex Highsmith, JuJu Smith-Schuster, and Diontae Johnson either.
Injuries plague every team and are a grim reality of the NFL; the next man up has to be ready to go.
However, when star players go down one after another this early in the year, the team’s depth is tested earlier than anyone anticipated.
Back To The AFC North
AFC North standings week three pic.twitter.com/um0z76bE27
— CleWest (@erjmanlasvegas) September 26, 2021
The 2-1 Ravens have played the best of the pack in the AFC North.
They are dangerously close to being undefeated if not for the Las Vegas Raiders’ heroics in their Week 1 game.
The Browns have been tested early but are putting the pieces together at 2-1 also.
And the Bengals, deemed a team of the future, may just be showing that the future is now as they jump out to a 2-1 start.
Where all of this leaves the 1-2 Steelers is yet to be determined.
Divisional play has not started yet which will prove to be very interesting with these four teams this season.
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