The Last Steelers 4-1 Start – the Super Bowl Season of 2010 – Can They Stay on that Path?

The Steelers crossed a pretty big bridge on Sunday afternoon with their solid 31-13 win over the New York Jets at Heinz Field, a win that puts the team in the driver’s seat in the AFC North with a 4-1 mark.

The Ravens and Bengals, the only real threats to the Steelers in the division (the Browns already are talking about the first pick in the 2017 NFL Draft), both lost on Sunday, and now are sitting at 3-2 and 2-3.

It all looks like puppy dogs and sunshine for the black and gold, as they sit atop the division, and have a meeting with the 1-4 Miami Dolphins lined up in South Florida on Sunday.

Why is 4-1 such a big deal for the Steelers? Well, the last time they were 4-1 after five games – they made it all the way to Super Bowl XLV against the Green Bay Packers in Dallas in the 2010 season.

The time before that they started 4-1? How about 2008 when they made it and won Super Bowl XLIII against the Arizona Cardinals in Tampa.

In other words, you get to 4-1 in a Steelers uniform, good things tend to happen.

Now let’s not start printing Super Bowl tickets just yet, there’s plenty of work to be done, but certainly it bodes well that the Steelers have the look of a team that can make a deep playoff run – even a Super Bowl run.

After the game at Miami, a game that the Steelers should win unless they have a massive letdown, the team will play two of their biggest games the following two weeks.

The first of which is a home game against the Steelers biggest challenge in the AFC – the New England Patriots. Don’t kid yourself about Denver or maybe a team like the Raiders – if things play out like they should, the Steelers and Patriots should be doing battle for the right to go to the Super Bowl.

It will be Tom Brady’s third game back, and should be a fun pre-Halloween showdown between two of the best in the AFC.

The next week the Steelers go to Baltimore to play the Ravens, a team that today fired it’s offensive coordinator after scoring 10 points Sunday against Washington.

The Ravens are going to put on a brave face that they are still a challenger in the AFC North and the AFC overall, but don’t kid yourself, this team has a lot of holes and the Steelers are a much better team.

With that, last season in a year that saw the Ravens win just five games, two of those wins were against the Steelers, including a late season one that nearly cost the Steelers a wild card spot in the playoffs.

If the Steelers can get a little more healthy and stay focused, it will be interesting to see if this team, a team that so far has looked ‘super’ can take a 4-1 record and sit at 7-1 one week into November.