12/29/16-Steelers Just Need To Stay Healthy This Week

By: Mike Pelaia

The Steelers advanced to 10-5 on Christmas night and clinched the AFC North in a game that will surely be looked at as the most thrilling in 2016.  With the victory, the season was given a bow on top as the team knocked the Ravens out of playoff contention and locked up the number three seed in the AFC playoffs simultaneously. Locking up the three seed provides a likely scenario that will see a home game against the Dolphins in round one, a road game against Oakland, who is now without Derek Carr, in round two and then lastly a trip to New England for the AFC Title (all pending the Steelers advancing of course).  This is about as good of a scenario as the black and gold could ask for entering the post season.

With the Steelers locked into the three seed, coach Tomlin has announced that he will sit stars LeVeon Bell (voted Team MVP for 2016), Antonio Brown and Ben Roethlisberger. 

I do agree with Tomlin on sitting Bell and Brown, there is no point in risking injuries to those two guys in a meaningless game against the woeful Browns. 

Surprisingly, I don’t agree with completely sitting Big Ben.  I would urge Tomlin to play Ben for at least a quarter or perhaps a half. I understand that the team can ill afford to have Ben get hurt, in my opinion he is the true team MVP, more so than Bell but Ben seems to struggle coming off of weeks he doesn’t play so in my opinion getting him a series or two would benefit the team in the first round of the playoffs.

Nevertheless this upcoming game against the Browns means absolutely nothing and the key to this game will be getting everybody out of the game healthy and ready to go for next week.  Tomlin needs to apply a version of the logic he’s using with the Killer B’s with all of his key starters, including Stephon Tuitt, James Harrison, Ryan Shazier, Lawrence Timmons, Bud Dupree, David DeCastro and Maurkice Pouncey.  The trio of rookies starting on defense can actually benefit from playing so I’m hoping they get significant time and come out healthy.

It’s nice to have a meaningless game to close out the season, the team can play a vanilla style offense while getting some guys like Landry Jones and the trio of rookies on defense some needed playing time. Win or lose is irrelevant and it all comes down to preparation for the playoffs.  With the most likely scenario being the Steelers taking on the Dolphins in round one, the week should be spent prepping for that game and I hope that Tomlin and his staff do just that. Sure, it’d be nice to finish the season 11-5 by beating the Browns but in the end who cares? It’s playoff time in Pittsburgh and this team is poised to make a run but it all rests on Tomlin making the right decisions this week in order to fully prepare his team for next week.  Those decisions are not x’s and o’s, they are playing time and style of play. If Tomlin manages the team properly this week, he can set his team up for success and a deep run into Januray…