Despite a late-season collapse and another early playoff exits, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ culture remains a boasting point. It takes a certain viewpoint to understand that, team president Art Rooney II believes.
Rooney sat down with WTAE’s Ashley Liotus for an interview posted on her X account Thursday. Though the Steelers dropped their final six outings of this season, he’s not sounding the alarm on the team’s ways.
“Look, I’m very comfortable with the culture in this team,” Rooney told Liotus. “I think it is a winning culture. You know, I think people need to keep it in perspective here. Even though we haven’t kind of reached our goal of winning a Super Bowl, we’ve had winning teams. We’ve been making the playoffs. And I understand the disappointment in terms of not succeeding in the postseason and that, you know, that’s what we have to do.
“But, it’s not like we haven’t had some success around here. We just need to continue to build on the culture that we have and players like T.J. (Watt) and Cam Heyward, those kind of players help.”
The Steelers’ most recent playoff win was in 2017, even before Watt arrived in Pittsburgh. Cross-state foe Philadelphia has reached the Super Bowl three times during that dry spell. It was on the road against the Eagles that Pittsburgh’s season-ending six-game skid began.
The Steelers haven’t had a losing season since 2003, a fact that’s pointed out ad nauseum. That’s part of the reason for head coach Mike Tomlin’s longevity. Tomlin is 11 wins from passing Chuck Noll for the most in the regular season in the team’s history.