The challenge for the Pittsburgh Steelers on Saturday night was great. Things didn’t get any easier when the Baltimore Ravens started their AFC wild card playoff game with a 95-yard touchdown drive.

And with the Steelers trailing 7-0, head coach Mike Tomlin decided to punt. It was an incredible moment.

The Ravens then completed a 13-play, 85-yard drive, each play a run, and Derrick Henry scored to give Baltimore a 14-0 lead. Anyone watching at home might find other plans for Saturday night afterward. The game was practically over.

The Ravens would win 28-14.

Tomlin is not the problem with the Steelers. To say this also requires the belief that the Steelers should have won more than 10 games with their squad this season. That’s probably not the case. But Steelers fans’ frustration is justified. That punt wasn’t the reason the Steelers lost, but it represented a stale approach that has many Pittsburgh fans begging for a change.

When asked if he expects the team’s offense to grow beyond improving since his rookie year in 2022, George Pickens replied, discouragingly and, for many, damningly, “No.”

Pittsburgh was good enough to make the playoffs and wasn’t even remotely competitive in the postseason for many years. That was the case again Saturday night, as the Ravens were never really tested. The Steelers end the season having not led a game since December 8th. They started 10-3 before completely collapsing. The performance against the Ravens was embarrassing in many ways.

Should the Steelers feel good this season when Tomlin got plenty out of a squad without a top-notch passing game and made the playoffs when few predicted it? Or should they ask themselves if the coach who has kept them from staying under .500 for 18 straight seasons is really the one holding the team back?

The Steelers are knocked out by the Ravens

Looking at Saturday night’s game, it’s pretty amazing that the Steelers beat the Ravens once this season and had a chance to beat Baltimore for the AFC North title by the end of the season.

Because on Saturday there was never any doubt about who was the better team. The Ravens looked like real Super Bowl contenders and were light years ahead of the Steelers. When Baltimore went on a 13-play touchdown drive without a single pass, it almost seemed like the Ravens were bored and challenging themselves. According to Amazon’s broadcast, it was the first TD drive in the NFL all season with 13 or more runs and no passes. And the Steelers couldn’t stop it.

At halftime, the Ravens led 21-0. Lamar Jackson had a highlight-reel touchdown pass that bought him nearly seven seconds before hitting Justice Hill for a 5-yard score. They had outscored the Steelers 308-59. The Ravens had 19 first downs and the Steelers had two. Playoff games shouldn’t look like this. Playoff teams shouldn’t look as inept as Pittsburgh either.

There was a glimmer of hope in the second half when the Steelers finally made some big plays, including a 30-yard touchdown to Van Jefferson. But right after that, the Ravens started another scoring drive, easily got a second-and-20 and Henry then broke off a 44-yard touchdown run. Henry tied Terrell Davis’ NFL record with his fourth 150-yard game of the playoffs. It was amazing how easily the Ravens passed the ball to the Steelers during this drive, or most of the game.

When you play so poorly in a playoff game after losing four straight and finishing the regular season without ever keeping a head in any of those games, touting a 10-win season seems completely empty. It felt like the Steelers were no closer to a contender than some of the teams that have a top-10 pick in this year’s NFL Draft.

The difficult question is: How can a ten-win team feel, in some ways, like one that should be rebuilding?

What can change the Steelers’ playoff drought?

This isn’t the first time in recent years that the Steelers have been eliminated in a playoff game shortly after kickoff. In each of their last six playoff appearances, they started at least 10 points behind, and a few times by more than 20.

If what happened Saturday night was an outlier and showed little fight in a one-off playoff game, that might be excusable. If it’s been happening over and over again for nearly a decade, that’s a reason to rightfully wonder if big changes are needed just to try something different.

“(This is) my story, not this collective’s story,” Tomlin said this week when asked about the Steelers’ playoff drought, which dates back to the end of the 2016 season. “Many of those involved do not carry these bags with them. I like carrying these bags. But I’m not going to project that onto the collective.”

There are issues beyond Tomlin’s control. The Steelers haven’t had good quarterback play since Ben Roethlisberger retired and are always too low in the draft to land a top prospect. It would be fair to see if adding a quarterback could change the disappointing trajectory of the Steelers and Tomlin. Tomlin doesn’t have Jackson or anything even remotely close to it. Finding one won’t be easy for Pittsburgh either. But Tomlin also needs to be examined as to why his team looked so bad in many of its performances in the last playoffs.

If history is any indicator, Tomlin will get more opportunities to get the Steelers back to a point where they feel like legitimate championship contenders. But at some point, Pittsburgh can’t just keep going and expect to face a team like Baltimore. But the loss to the Ravens was further proof that something needs to change.