"Pittsburgh Is A B-Minus Team"

That was the difference between Steelers and Patriots. Patriots beat all the bottom feeders except Dolphins... while Steelers during the Tomlin era lost to bottom feeders in 2009 and then it became a yearly tradition starting in 2014 with losses to Bucs, Browns and Jets. This cost Steelers playoff seeding year after year... sometimes costing them playoff berths, examples 2013 & 2018. Patriots took care of business and was usually #1 seed.. 2 games from the Super Bowl, year in and year out.

 

That's because they had Brady

 

That and the rampant cheating.

 

I also remember some of those losses to bottom feeders where Ben would return from injury and just play bad.

 

Still, that's not an excuse if a team is serious about contending for a Super Bowl. Brady missed games due to injury and suspension. Patriots didn't miss a beat.. ended up at the very least in a conference championship game.

 

Not in 2014

Regarding the Jets' loss, I explained it in another post, but the games against the Bucs and the Browns were also inexcusable. Like against the Bucs, the Steelers showed no urgency when they had the lead on offense, and the perfect example was when they were up 24-20 and called a run on 3rd and 5th when a first down would have been game over. As a result, they lost that game.

And against the Browns, they had like 21 runs on their 26 first plays or something ridiculous like that, and they only started opening up the offense when they were down 21-3, but it was too late.

Also, they wait to play Martavis Bryant that year when their backs were against the wall(after 6 games when they were 3-3 after 6 games), when it was obvious way before that a scrub like Justin Brown wasn't NFL caliber.

 

LoL