The Steelers heading back to the playoffs for the third consecutive season. Last year, the narrative was that the Steelers had not won a playoff game since 2010, but their Wild Card win over the Bungles accomplished that. The Steelers have been slowly building momentum over the last few years with two division titles and a wild card berth, losing to the Ravens in the Wild Card round in 2014 and the Broncos in the Divisional round last year. An NFL roster is a constantly changing makeup of long-term veterans, role players and recent draft picks and the Steelers have seen their share of turnover in the last 5 seasons with aged veterans retiring and emerging stars cashing in elsewhere in free agency. As veterans have retired or moved on, the Steelers have lost a significant number of players from their roster that had experience winning games in the playoffs.
Here’s a breakdown of the Steelers 53-man roster as we head into the playoffs:
0 Playoff Games (16)
- Demarcus Ayers
- Le’Veon Bell
- Artie Burns
- Jordan Dangerfield
- Sean Davis
- BJ Finney
- Justin Gilbert
- Xavier Grimble
- Javon Hargrave
- Tyler Matakevich
- Johnny Maxey
- Zach Mettenberger
- Brian Mihalik
- Roosevelt Nix
- Eli Rogers
- Al-Hajj Shabazz
0 Playoff Wins (1)
- Cobi Hamilton (2014 with CIN)
0 Conference Championship Games (27)
- Jordan Berry
- Chris Boswell
- Anthony Chickillo
- Sammie Coates
- Ross Cockrell
- David DeCastro
- Bud Dupree
- LJ Fort
- Marcus Gilbert
- Robert Golden
- Ladarius Green (2013 with San Diego)
- Darrius Heyward-Bey (including 2013 with IND)
- Chris Hubbard
- Jesse James
- Jarvis Jones
- Landry Jones
- Ricardo Mathews (2010, 2012, and 2013 with IND)
- Daniel McCullers
- Mike Mitchell (including 2013 with CAR)
- Arthur Moats
- Ryan Shazier
- Fitzgerald Toussaint (including 2014 with BAL)
- Stephon Tuitt
- Alejandro Villanueva
- LT Walton
- DeAngelo Williams (including 2008, 2013 and 2014 with CAR)
- Vince Williams
0 Super Bowl Appearances (1)
- Maurkice Pouncey (injured in 2010 AFC Championship Game and did not play in Super Bowl XLV)
0 Super Bowl Wins (3)
- Antonio Brown
- Ramon Foster
- David Johnson
1 Super Bowl Win (2)
- William Gay
- Lawrence Timmons
2 Super Bowl Wins (3)
- Greg Warren
- Ben Roethlisberger
- James Harrison
The name that stands out the most on this list is Le’Veon Bell, who will be playing in his first playoff game after suffering season-ending injuries the last two years. Another way to look at this list is that with the retirement of Heath Miller, only 3 players remain from the team that won Super Bowl XL under Bill Cowher and only 5 of the 53 have a Super Bowl ring (down from 7 last year with Matt Spaeth not being re-signed). Just 8 of 53 have played in a Super Bowl and 9 have played in at least one conference championship game. The biggest change to this list has been in the players that have won at least one playoff game. Last year, less than a third of the roster (16 of 53) had won a playoff game while this year all but 17 players (32%) have a playoff victory under their belts. While this team might be a little short on players who have made deep runs in the playoffs, that also means that those players are that much hungrier to taste the glory some of their other teammates have had. The Steelers have treated the month of December like their own personal playoffs and have won seven in a row after falling to 4-5 midseason. The time has come for this generation of Steelers to make their mark in the postseason, and it starts with getting revenge against Miami who started their 4-game losing streak in October.
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