The NFL and Pro Football Hall of Fame unveiled their all-decade team for the 2010s. There were 52 players and two head coaches selected. And the total number of Steelers on the team was ... two.
Yes, only two Steelers _ Antonio Brown and Maurkice Pouncey _ were deemed worthy of being recognized on the all-decade team for their work the past 10 years. That was shocking to me because these are the Steelers, one of the league's top franchises and owner of six Super Bowls, eight AFC titles and 22 division titles.
Then I stripped off my regional bias, and this was probably even more shocking to me: I couldn't make a case for any other Steelers player to be on the team. The Steelers haven't been that great of a team for the past decade, and actually they have been closer to the middle of the league than the top.
The decade started off well enough in 2010, as they made it to the Super Bowl but lost to Green Bay. They won two playoff games that season en route to the Super Bowl. In the nine years since, they have won only three playoff games.
They have played in one AFC title game in that span and got smoked by New England. They have playoff losses to Tim Tebow and Blake Bortles and two of their three wins came against Marvin Lewis/Andy Dalton and Matt Moore.
The Steelers did make the playoffs six times in 10 years and they can boast they didn't have a losing season. That's all very little consolation considering the talent they have had, especially on offense. The Steelers should have been better in this decade and they weren't, and that's why I had such a hard time arguing with the fact that they had only two people on the all-decade team.
My colleague Ray Fittipaldo said he could make a case for Cam Heyward and David DeCastro, and as with any all-star team, I am sure there are some cases to be made for a few other players. But those cases aren't overwhelming to the point where it is clear there was an omission.
Beyond those two, I couldn't come up with another Steelers player that deserved to be on the team over guys who made it.
Le'Veon Bell had four excellent seasons and at his best was certainly one of the top running backs in the NFL. The problem is he sat out a season and last season he was a non-factor, so it is impossible to put him on the team. Ramon Foster was a solid, consistent NFL guard, but he wasn't one of the four best in the NFL over the decade. Chris Boswell only played half the decade and was terrible in 2018.
The one defensive player who I think may have had a case is Joe Haden, but that would have been mostly due to his work in Cleveland. And even then, you aren't putting him over Darrelle Revis, Patrick Peterson or Richard Sherman, the three corners that made it.
Ben Roethlisberger has played at a high level for most of the decade and had several elite seasons statistically. He has certainly been one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL for most of the decade, but he hasn't been better than Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady, the two quarterbacks who were picked. And if we were going to replace one of those two, it would be with Drew Brees and not Roethlisberger.
That's often the case with these things, by the way, as the teams that win the most usually have the most people on the all-star teams. The Patriots had eight players and Bill Belichick on the team. And they should have dominated the team because they dominated the decade. They were in the AFC title game eight times in 10 years and they went to five Super Bowls.
The Steelers and their fans have always carried themselves as if they were one of the hunted. And that is true to a point; they are such a popular franchise and have had so much success that most teams look up to them.
The thing is, a lot of that high-level success is history, some of it ancient history. These Steelers haven't been that same franchise in a long time. They miss the playoffs now as much as they make it (four times in the last eight years).
That doesn't mean they aren't still a successful franchise, but it is time for some around these parts to face the reality of what they have become. The all-decade team is a great indicator of just how much the Steelers have slipped from their once lofty place among the NFL's elite teams.
