I’d love to be mad right now.

I’d love to get on here and put together a well-thought out soliloquy about how the Steelers choked away a two-game lead in the AFC North down the stretch by losing their final four games, three of which were by 14 or more points and two of which were against divisional opponents. I truly would love nothing more.

But being angry would mean I had expectations. And after seeing the Steelers lose three straight coming into this game, and after seeing this exact thing play out year after year where the Steelers choke down the stretch, the expectations have gone out the window. There is no anger. There is no wondering what could have been if a play or two had gone the other way. There is no fuming. There’s nothing. Just the numbness of accepting that this middling, going-nowhere franchise is never going to change its ways. Forever stuck in the purgatory of the NFL – too bad to be good, but too good to be bad and without a real quarterback or forward-thinking head coach to get them back in the conversation of the elite teams in the NFL.

Now, you’ll have to forgive me – this isn’t going to be a game recap – you all watched what happened and frankly I’m tired of writing the same things week in and week out. The offense was awful, particularly Russell Wilson (17-of-31, 148 yards) who put together the two-minute drive equivalent of Kevin dropping the chili in The Office to close the game. George Pickens was also dreadful, dropping three passes and finishing with one catch for as many yards as you and I. The Steelers should have turned things over to Justin Fields in the second half, but instead did what they do and just continued banging their head against a wall expecting different results. Cam Heyward played awesome (three batted passes) and T.J. Watt looked as explosive as he has in over a month, but the offensive inadequacies were too much for the defense to overcome in what was another game that completely lacked complimentary football. All that said, they’ll play the Ravens next week who will likely be without Zay Flowers and they’ll have a good chance to win.

But let’s think bigger picture. Even if they do beat Baltimore, this isn’t a team capable of making it any further. They’ll lose to the Chiefs again and hit their head on the very hard ceiling they’ve set for themselves. Which is why, even though it may not be popular to many, the smart thing to do would be to hit reset and strip this down to the studs. You didn’t win anything with T.J. Watt. You didn’t win anything with Minkah Fitzpatrick. You didn’t win anything with Cam Heyward. And over the last decade, you haven’t won anything with Mike Tomlin. And not to turn this into a “Tomlin has to go” column, but eventually we have to call a spade a spade and admit when the road meets its end. The constant collapses late in the season, the high floor-low ceiling nature of just about every Steelers team since 2018, as well as the aforementioned mediocrity leaving them permanently out of reach of a potential top quarterback in the draft, it’s just time.

Why keep running it back when every year yields the same results? No fans care about the lack of losing seasons. Look at the San Francisco 49ers for example – they had a losing season this year. However, they’ve also made it to four NFC Championship Games and two Super Bowls since 2019. I’m sure every Steelers fan would sign up for an occasional losing season if it meant getting that type of production in return. But in order to get to that level of elite, the 49ers made a tough decision to fire Jim Harbaugh and had two dud head coaches in Jim Tomsula and Chip Kelly in consecutive years before landing Kyle Shanahan. You have to go through some lows to get back to reaching great heights. So if that means the Steelers take the Jimmy Johnson Dallas Cowboys route and stinking for a year, trading some good players for a swarm of picks in hopes of landing a potential franchise quarterback like Drew Allar, then you do it.

In a perfect world, the Steelers would listen to teams if they called about trading for Mike Tomlin, and then in turn would hand a blank check to Ben Johnson. Instead, they’ll run this back again next year, win nine or 10 games, maybe get into the playoffs, maybe not, and go home early even if they do. It’s a cycle that will never be broken until the Steelers take their medicine and start a constructive rebuild with a long-term vision in mind. Until then, they’ll keep force-feeding us outdated offenses, word salads, and teams that are a far cry from winning important games.