Can the Patriots take the subsequent step towards the Steelers?

FOXBORO – Let’s fast-forward.

In two weeks, the Patriots will put together to battle the Payments on Sunday Night time Soccer in a recreation most will describe as a nationally televised measuring stick for Mike Vrabel’s staff.

Heck, I do know I’ll.

As a result of the Payments are the Payments.

Tremendous Bowl favorites powered by an MVP quarterback on a Corridor of Fame trajectory. Reigning division champions courting to 2020. A portrait of NFL stability due to a well-executed, by-the-book rebuild.

So if the Patriots, within the midst of their very own rebuild, lose a detailed one at Buffalo, we will gown it up as an ethical victory. And if the Pats win, the playoff push will likely be full steam forward.

OK, rewind.

What concerning the Steelers this Sunday?

That’s no measuring stick. It is a look-in-the-mirror recreation.

For all its previous glory, Pittsburgh is simply one other franchise caught on the treadmill of mediocrity clinging to the protection bar because the pace picks up beneath its toes. The Patriots misplaced their grip someday round 2023, bought flung backwards, picked themselves up, stepped again on, flew off once more final yr and dusted themselves off by hiring Vrabel.

The Steelers, famously, don’t lose their grip. They’ve solely employed three head coaches within the Tremendous Bowl period. Their newest, Mike Tomlin, hasn’t suffered a dropping season since he was employed virtually 20 years in the past. And good for Tomlin.

However ask a Steelers fan how that’s going recently.

Their staff hasn’t received a playoff recreation since 2016. Pittsburgh’s been outscored in 4 of the final six seasons and missed the playoffs twice. In the event that they aren’t on a treadmill, the Steelers are wandering the NFL wilderness like another fringe playoff staff hoping to mild its manner out.

What occurs Sunday in Foxboro will ship considered one of these wandering franchises deeper into the woods, and the opposite nearer to stepping out of the shadows of its former glory. The Patriots, who lastly took a step ahead final weekend by not solely profitable at Miami, however scoring 30 factors for the primary time in three years, are determined to take one other step.

Oddsmakers say not so quick.

Pittsburgh is a 1.5-point favourite, regardless of dropping its residence opener final week on the again of bone-headed particular groups play and two interceptions from Aaron Rodgers. In the meantime, Drake Maye hasn’t thrown two picks all yr, and carried out like one of many NFL’s finest quarterbacks in Week 2. You would make the case Maye is a greater quarterback in the present day than Rodgers, an argument supported by a number of superior metrics and folk at locations like Professional Soccer Focus.

However what’s completed is finished, what will likely be issues extra.

What will likely be for the Patriots is basically as much as Maye and Vrabel, who efficiently steeled his staff forward of final week’s journey to South Florida. Now, Vrabel’s process is to repair the issues that surfaced towards the Dolphins; issues that if repeated will price them towards another staff, together with the Steelers.

“We had a few penalties and false begins,” Vrabel mentioned post-game, noting the Patriots’ dozen penalties. “Once more, issues we actually aren’t going to have the ability to overcome finally.”