The end of the regular season has arrived. Is it wrong to say “all too soon”? I am sure the players are thrilled that the regular season has come to an end, but for me, that just means we are just a little more than a month away from the offseason.

Sad.

To close out the regular season, the Steelers played one more AFC North game against the (up to then) winless Cleveland Browns. Through the masterful play of the GOAT of backups, the Steelers pulled out the victory and allowed the Browns to enter historical infamy as one of only five teams to fail to notch a win for an entire season.

Let’s take a look at the Good, the Bad and the Ugly from the Steelers last regular season game.

Good

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Landry Jones

23/27 for 239 yards, 85.2 Completion %, 1 TD, 1 INT and 100.5 QBR

The GOAT (of backups (for the Steelers (sort of)))

All kidding aside, Landry Jones played a really good game. It was, to use a Tomlinism, “Above the Line”. He was, in large part, why the Steelers won the game, and played effective winning football throughout.

This proves what many of us have been saying for the past couple of years – Landry is a good, solid and effective backup quarterback. He’s what the Steelers need in that position. He knows the playbook and can be counted on to play effectively in the event he’s needed.

He is not now, nor has he ever been Ben’s replacement. But when he plays like he did in this game you can understand why the Steelers are comfortable with him as the backup.

Stevan Ridley

17 attempts for 80 yards, 1 TD

For the “new guy”, that’s a pretty solid game. He showed nice burst on several plays, and seemed natural in the backfield. Even Fitz Toussaint looked good (5 carries for 22 yards). When you can get 100+ yards out of your two backup running backs, you’ve done pretty well.

Yes, the offensive line deserves a lot of credit. They mauled what is a good Browns defensive front, and made it look easy for the Steelers at times to move the ball on the ground. Even after B.J. Finney went out due to injury.

While it’s disappointing that James Conner won’t be getting any postseason snaps, Ridley showed that he can be the guy to spell Le’Veon Bell when necessary.

JuJu Smith-Schuster

9 receptions for 143 yards, 1 TD

The Steelers ROY (awarded last week to JuJu) continued to show impressive growth. JuJu was limited early in the season due to injury, and made some typical rookie mistakes more than once, but he’s grown week to week and continues to integrate naturally into the lineup.

Martavis Bryant had a solid week catching the ball as well, but JuJu really took the “AB” spot and topped his big day off with a 96-yard kick return for a touchdown.

The last guy to return a kickoff for a TD? Antonio Brown.

Tyson Alualu

8 Tackles (6 solo), 2 sacks, 4 Tackle for Loss

In years past this guy would have been Ricardo Mathews (meh), or if you want to go back another year, Cam Thomas (hurl). This year, the rotational defensive lineman for the Steelers has been Tyson Alualu, and he had himself a game spelling the true GOAT (Cam Heyward). In fact, he had a Cam-like game with 2 sacks, 4 TFL and basically wreaking havoc on his side of the line.

I am not sure if we can overstate how important having a guy like Alualu has been this year. The ability to put someone of quality into the lineup has kept Tuitt and Heyward fresh and primed.

T.J. Watt

8 Tackles (6 solo), 1 sack, 1 Pass defensed

Early in the year, I think everyone assumed T.J. was going to run away with the Steelers ROY honors. I think he still has a legitimate shot at DROY for the AFC though. Here are T.J.’s stats for the year:

15 games started, 52 tackles (39 solo), 7 sacks, 1 forced fumble, 1 INT, 8 passes defensed.

Hell, just the first one – starting 15 games, is essentially unheard of for a Steelers OLB, or player for that matter.

If it’s possible to have a quite “monster” year, that’s what T.J. had, and this last game is fairly demonstrative of his season as a whole. He causes pressure when asked to, and will get home to get a sack. He is more than above average in pass coverage (although it may be a bit much to ask him to keep up with speedy WR’s), and he will create turnovers.

Bad

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The Secondary

314 passing yards, 10 first downs via the pass

The Steelers managed to break the franchise season mark for sacks with 56. This also ended up passing Jacksonville for the league lead. Bud Dupree felt like that was a big part of why they were victimized through the air:

I feel like that’s why we gave up so many yards; we were focused on that team sack record.

I am not buying it.

I think it’s much more likely that guys were playing the run first, and the pass second. On at least one long pass play, Joe Haden was clearly looking into the backfield and lost track of the receiver. He might have been expecting safety help, but that help was either out of position, or late in reacting. Maybe because of the same thing.

The Steelers have been getting gashed via the run, and I think they focused on that. What had already been a leaky secondary may have leaked a little more as a result. Yes, it’s not a great day when the Browns throw 2 passes for 56 yards against you. But let’s not forget that one of those was Josh Gordon, and he’s kinda good. The other was a short pass and a long run.

Ugly

I really can’t think of anything so bad I would call it ugly. Maybe the over dramatization of the 2 sacks (which occurred on the last two plays of the game) that James Harrison got, and trying to use those two plays, against a bad Jets team, as vindication that the Steelers should have kept their franchise sack leader around and played him more often.

But I think I’ve said all I have to say about that.

Conclusion

It’s time for the second season. The Steelers earned a bye week, something that the fans have all said they needed to do. From the beginning of the season, this has been a big part of what everyone thought was part of the stairway to seven.

So, now that they’ve gone and done it, what’s everyone talking about?

Rust.

Sometimes we just aren’t happy unless we have something to worry about.