The Pittsburgh Steelers haven’t won a playoff game since Jan. 15, 2017 — a nine-year drought that ranks among the most frustrating stretches in franchise history. Tonight, with Aaron Rodgers under center and the Houston Texans visiting Acrisure Stadium for a Wild Card showdown, Mike Tomlin’s team has another chance to end the skid.
That last victory came against the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Divisional Round, an 18-16 grind-it-out affair at Arrowhead Stadium that showcased everything Pittsburgh does best when firing on all cylinders. Chris Boswell kicked six field goals — an NFL playoff record — while Le’Veon Bell totaled 170 rushing yards on 30 carries.
The Steelers won without reaching the end zone, becoming the first team to pull off that feat in a playoff game since the 2006 Indianapolis Colts.
A Look at the Steelers’ 2016 Playoff Run and the Drought That Followed
Ben Roethlisberger went 20-of-31 for 224 yards that night in Kansas City, with Antonio Brown hauling in six catches for 108 yards. The Steelers nearly let it slip away late — Kansas City scored a touchdown with 2:43 remaining and appeared to convert the two-point conversion to tie it, but a holding penalty on left tackle Eric Fisher wiped it out. The second attempt fell incomplete, and Pittsburgh held on for what would prove to be its last postseason victory of the Tomlin era.
A week later, the New England Patriots demolished the Steelers 36-17 in the AFC Championship Game, and the losing has continued every January since. Pittsburgh has dropped six consecutive playoff games, falling in the Wild Card Round in four straight postseason appearances. The franchise that won six Super Bowls has gone nearly a decade without tasting playoff success. T.J. Watt, now 31, has never been on the field for a Steelers postseason win.
“Quite frankly, most of these men don’t care about the last whatever years that you mentioned,” Tomlin said this week. “Most of them are new to us.”
That’s partly true. Rodgers brings a playoff pedigree most of this roster lacks — he’s 12-10 in the postseason with a Super Bowl ring from 2010. But his last playoff win came five years ago, a 32-18 victory over the Rams. He hasn’t played a postseason game since January 2022, when Green Bay fell 13-10 to San Francisco.
Can Rodgers and the Steelers Finally Break Through Against Houston?
Pittsburgh will try to end its playoff drought against a Texans team that’s riding a nine-game winning streak. While the AFC North champion is hosting Houston, the Steelers have earned skepticism after years of January disappointment.
“It’s a clean slate now,” Rodgers said. “Anybody can make a run. It’s the hottest team. We’ve won four out of five.”
The 42-year-old quarterback has embraced his role in Pittsburgh and developed a strong relationship with Tomlin. After the Steelers clinched the AFC North with a dramatic Week 18 win over Baltimore, NFL Films caught Rodgers thanking Tomlin for bringing him to Pittsburgh. “You kidding me? Thank you for coming,” Tomlin replied.
Cam Heyward isn’t dwelling on the team’s past failures. He knows this might be one of his final chances at a postseason run.
“We gotta punch first,” Heyward said on his podcast this week. “I think in these last playoff games I’ve been really just looking at, we kind of waited a little bit to see what happens. Now we gotta go out and attack.”
Houston hasn’t won a road playoff game in franchise history. Pittsburgh hasn’t lost a home Monday Night Football game since 1991. Something will give tonight at Acrisure Stadium, and for a franchise that last celebrated a January victory when Bell was dancing through holes and Boswell was setting records, the wait has been long enough.
