Thirty-five years ago this month, the Pirates had completed their first season under fiery manager Jim Leyland. For the Penguins, it was the start of Bob Berry’s third and final year behind the bench, and Mario Lemieux began his quest for his first career 50-goal season.
The Pitt football team was transitioning under first-year coach Mike Gottfried, and a few hours away in Happy Valley, Joe Paterno was fielding Penn State’s second national championship team.
Amid that sporting landscape, the Steelers hit a dubious milestone, accomplishing a feat they haven’t matched since but will put on the line Sunday.
On Oct. 19, 1986, the Steelers were shut out, 34-0, by the New England Patriots at Three Rivers Stadium, dropping their record to 1-6 but also giving them an 0-3 record at home.
It was the first time since 1968, a year before Chuck Noll arrived, that the Steelers started 0-3 at home. In fact, they had started 0-2 at home just once previously under Noll, in 1983. And in the 34 football seasons that followed, through Noll, Bill Cowher and Mike Tomlin, the Steelers have never lost more than two home games to start a season.
That streak could end Sunday when the Denver Broncos, armed with a 3-1 record, visit Heinz Field to face the 1-3 Steelers, losers of three in a row regardless of venue.
“We just have to find a way to, at the end of the game, have a ‘W’ on the board,” quarterback Ben Roethlisberger said. “You can play well and all those things and get better, but at the end of the day, you want to win the football game. That’s what we have to do.”
It’s a goal that seemed attainable after the Steelers opened the season with a 23-16 victory at Buffalo. Then came losses on back-to-back weeks at Heinz Field to Las Vegas and, more surprisingly, Cincinnati. After a loss at Green Bay, the Steelers get another chance to correct their home-field deficiencies against the Broncos on Sunday and the Seattle Seahawks next weekend.
The challenge awaiting Tomlin’s team is one he faced in 2013 when the Steelers had two home losses sprinkled in among an 0-4 start. The Steelers won their third home game, 19-16, against Baltimore and finished the season with an 8-8 record, including a 5-3 mark at Heinz Field.
It was more of the same in 2018 when the Steelers lost home games to Kansas City and Baltimore and were 1-2-1 heading into a game at Heinz Field against Atlanta. The Steelers got back on track with a 41-17 victory that ignited a six-game winning streak. Although the Steelers didn’t make the playoffs that year with a 9-6-1 record, they also finished with a 5-3 record at home.
Given such history, don’t expect Tomlin to deliver fiery speeches about the importance of this Broncos game.
“It’s less about what we say,” Tomlin said. “It’s more about what we do and our approach to our circumstances, particularly when you’re dealing with young guys, and we’ve got some young guys. Forget what comes out of my mouth. They’re studying how I move, they’re studying the spirit in which I move, the attitude and energy that I bring to the opportunity.
“The can-do approach is extremely helpful when you face the adversity that this game presents.”
Defensive captain Cameron Heyward and Roethlisberger are the only holdovers from those 2013 and 2018 teams that stared down an 0-3 home start.
“Let’s just get a win,” Heyward said. “I’ll never try to compare any season before to another season. Every season has its pitfalls and tops. It’s about battling through adversity and coming out the other side of this.”
Since free agency began in 1993, the Steelers’ 160 home wins rank third, trailing only Green Bay (171) and New England (169). The Steelers have the most home wins of any team (285) dating to the 1970 merger.
The record books will show that this is the seventh time since Noll’s arrival in 1969 that the Steelers have lost their first two home games. Two were under his watch (1983, ‘86) and the next two occurred in 1999 and 2000 under coach Bill Cowher.
In 1999, the Steelers finished 6-10 and had a 2-6 record at Three Rivers Stadium that represented the worst season at that venue. Even when the Steelers started 0-3 at home in 1986, they won four of their final five at Three Rivers.
The ’99 season led to Tom Donahoe’s dismissal as general manager and ushered in the Kevin Colbert era. Since Colbert’s arrival, the Steelers never have finished with a losing record at home, the closest coming in 2003 when they were 4-4 at Heinz Field as part of a 6-10 finish.
That, of course, is the last time the Steelers ended a season with more losses than wins, a streak they would like to extend until 2022. A victory against Denver would be a step in the right direction.
“Regardless of our current state, this time of the year is less about the people that we play,” Tomlin said. “It’s more about the continual trajectory of our group, us gaining a better understanding of who we are, who we have available to us. How do we accentuate their positive traits? How do we work to minimize their negative traits? How do we set them up schematically and put them in a good position to be successful? How do we prepare them? How do they go out and make plays that put us in the winner’s circle.
“That’s our challenge and focus for the week.”
Joe Rutter is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Joe by email at jrutter@triblive.com or via Twitter .
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