Few locker rooms at midseason were as morose as the home team's in Heinz Field on Nov. 13. Players in that room had just seen a magnificent comeback victory crumbled in the final 42 seconds by the Dallas Cowboys and they seemed broken by it.
The 35-30 loss was the Steelers' fourth in a row, dropped them to 4-5 and the murmurs of discontent from their fan base erupted into a full-throated call for heads to roll.
Instead, the Steelers went on a roll, inauspicious at first when they won at Cleveland and then at Indianapolis against the Colts' backup quarterback. After that, it became real with victories over the Giants, at Buffalo and Cincinnati and then an AFC North title clincher against Baltimore.
The Steelers have won nine in a row since that loss to Dallas. So, what turned it around?
"I don't know if there was one thing," said quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who was front and center for another famous season-ending win streak that produced a Lombardi Trophy.
"I know that was a time kind of when we were dealing with some injuries and trying to figure out kind of who we are and were, and our identity."
The injuries included a season-ender to one of their best defensive players, end Cam Heyward. Linebacker Ryan Shazier was just getting back into the flow after missing three games with an MCL knee sprain. Starting wide receiver Markus Wheaton was done with a shoulder injury. His two backups, Sammie Coates and Darrius Heyward-Bey, were rendered useless with hand and foot injuries. Linebacker Bud Dupree, now a starter, had not yet played after hernia surgery.
Then Roethlisberger went public, saying the Steelers lacked attention to details and were not accountable.
Things looked glum after that loss to the Cowboys. But there was some uplifting moments in that game against the best the NFC had to offer at the time and Roethlisberger and others took control.
As a group, Roethlisberger said, they decided, "Listen, we are going to be OK. Let's just follow the lead of the veterans."
Roethlisberger famously told his teammates to "follow me" before that game against the Cowboys and he did everything possible to win it _ 408 yards, no interceptions and three touchdown passes, including a fake-spike 15-yard scoring pass to Antonio Brown with 42 seconds to go for a 30-29 lead.
Perhaps the comeback actually began with that difficult loss against a Dallas team that ran its record to 8-1 with the victory at Heinz Field. The NFC top-seeded Cowboys' season ended last Sunday.
Said Roethlisberger, "I think guys like myself, Maurkice Pouncey, James Harrison, guys that have been on this team and have been through this, just kind of said, 'We've been here before. It's no time to panic.' And we haven't panicked. That has been kind of our saying here the last few weeks: Just don't panic when things get tough."
They decided to lean more heavily on Le'Veon Bell as a runner rather than keep trying to throw him the ball and to throw it deep.
The next game, in Cleveland, Bell began an epic assault on defenses with 146 yards rushing, the first of seven games over 100 in the next eight, right through their two playoff wins. The only time he did not top 100, he had 93 at Cincinnati.
That helped keep their defense more rested too. Through this nine-game win streak, the offense has averaged 32 minutes and 31 seconds holding the ball. In their first nine games, that average was 29 minutes and six seconds, and during their four-game losing streak it was just 28:35 _ both less time than their opponents had it.
That has helped on the scoreboard too, not to mention the win column. The Steelers defense has a goal of allowing 17 points or fewer. They have allowed an average of 16.6 during their nine-game win streak compared to 22.9 through the first nine games.
Some of the philosophy change on offense was forced on them by the way defenses were playing.
"We have noticed a lot of teams are trying to take away the big play," Roethlisberger said. "They don't want the quick strike or big play. So they are playing deep and taking away that play. So that forces us and makes us understand we need to run the ball. We have been really good at doing that."
They will need that, and maybe more, Sunday.
