In what part of the season do the Steelers historically find the most success?

Have the Steelers late season collapses been an ongoing problem?

As part of my Steelers Stat Geek podcast, I’m constantly looking for various questions in regards to a variety of Steelers statistics. During an electronic conversation with one of the podcast listeners, Mike Smith, he raised the question of how long the Steelers have been struggling to close out the regular season. In looking at the question, he generated a graphic for the Steelers game-by-game results over the last 10 years.

With the difficult work already done for me, Mike gave me permission to share this graphic with the BTSC community. It should be noted that the results are done by game and not weeks so the location of the bye has been taken out of the equation. Additionally, winning percentages are calculated on a game-by-game basis as well as looking at a quarter of the season. Wins are highlighted green while losses are highlighted in what I would classify a peach color. The single tie over the last 10 years is in blue.

So here is the data to help draw conclusions about where the Steelers are the most successful and struggle the most throughout the last 10 years. Of course issues such as game location, opponent, and a variety of other factors come into play, this is simply the raw data over time.

Mike Smith

There are several things which may or may not jump out at you right away as you look at the data. One thing that stands out to me is Game 1 is the only game in which the Steelers do not have at least a .500 record.

While looking for the ultimate question which drove this breakdown, the Steelers late season collapses have really only occurred since 2018. Prior to that time, the Steelers are winning more of their games over the final quarter of the season with the lone exception of 2012. While an exact cause could be a number of things, it can be noted that 2018 was when the Steelers hired there now former offensive coordinator. I’ll just leave it at that for you to determine if that was one of the factors or not.

One of the biggest things that stands out to me is the four-game stretch between Game 6 and Game 9 where the Steelers have not lost in the last four seasons. Of course, it helps make it stand out that in 2016 they lost all four of those games. But since that time, the Steelers have managed a nice winning streak during games which would generally occur in the month of October and early November.

While I could dive into this data and number of different ways, I simply want to ask this question: What stands out the most to you? Is there anything you find intriguing in looking at the Steelers wins and losses by game over the last 10 seasons? There’s plenty for discussion, so feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments below.