Steelers Quietly Becoming One of the Most Dangerous Threats in Crowded AFC

If you ask all your football-loving friends and family members to make a short list of Super Bowl LI contenders, few of those lists will include the Pittsburgh Steelers, unless you live in or near Allegheny County.

That, however, is probably about to change. 

On the surface, the Steelers don't appear to be a major threat to AFC powerhouses like the 10-2 Oakland Raiders, the 10-2 New England Patriots or the 9-3 Kansas City Chiefs. After all, Pittsburgh is just 7-5 and still technically out of the playoff picture. 

But it's been a strange and complicated season for a team that hasn't had two of its top three offensive weapons, quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and running back Le'Veon Bell, for key stretches.

Without the suspended Bell in Week 3, the Steelers scored just three points in a blowout loss to the cross-state rival Philadelphia Eagles. Without a healthy Roethlisberger in Weeks 7 and 9 (he returned from a knee injury after the team's Week 8 bye but wasn't himself), they were defeated relatively easily by the New England Patriots and Baltimore Ravens. 

With those two active and unhindered, they're 5-2. And that includes three consecutive wins.

Two weeks ago, they breezed by a bad Cleveland Browns team on the road, winning by a 15-point margin. Last week, they hammered the Indianapolis Colts by 21 points on short rest in Indy. And on Sunday, they outplayed a streaking New York Giants team from start to finish in a 24-14 victory.

It wasn't as close as the final score indicated, either, and it marked the fourth consecutive stellar game for an offense that we already knew required a Hazard Class 1 explosive label. Before scoring 24 or more points against the Browns, Colts and Giants, they put up 30 in a tough home loss to the NFL-leading Dallas Cowboys.

The Steelers have flaws. The defense can still be had, and they turned the ball over twice on Sunday after not having done so in any of their last three games.

But as I wrote last week, this is a team that can beat anybody—often handily—so long as Big Ben, Bell and star wide receiver Antonio Brown are active and healthy. 

Player	First 9 weeks	Last 4 weeks
Ben	62%, 17 TD, 7 INT, 93.9 rating	71%, 8 TD, 1 INT, 110.3 rating
Bell	131.8 scrimmage yards/game	164.8 scrimmage yards/game
Brown	84.6 YPG, 6 TD	93.8 YPG, 5 TD

That hasn't often been the case this season, but it is right now. So it's no surprise that the Steelers have been so tough to stop over the last four weeks. 

They didn't break the scoreboard on Sunday, but they still managed 24 points against a talented and expensive defense that hadn't given up that many since Week 4. Despite two uncharacteristic turnovers, Roethlisberger and Co. had 389 yards against a "D" that had surrendered just 307.3 yards per game in the previous three weeks.

The Steelers had 12 penalties compared to just four for the Giants and both teams had two turnovers, yet Pittsburgh held a 24-7 lead late in the fourth quarter. 

The Giants hadn't lost since Week 5, but this was never really close. 

Of course, many of us were already pretty sure Roethlisberger, Bell and Brown could theoretically carry the Steelers deep into the playoffs, but this marked the third straight week in which the Pittsburgh defense held its opponent to fewer than 15 points. That unit intercepted Giants quarterback Eli Manning within a few yards of the Pittsburgh end zone on two occasions and held New York to just 234 net yards. 

Without arguably its best all-around defensive player in Cameron Heyward, that "D" has often been cited as a potential liability. It didn't help its cause by giving up 34 to the Eagles in Week 3, 30 to the Miami Dolphins in Week 6 and 35 to the Cowboys in Week 10.

And a lot of folks weren't convinced things had changed simply because they allowed a total of 16 points in back-to-back victories over the winless Browns and the Andrew Luck-less Colts. 

Holding the red-hot, playoff-contending Giants to just a single touchdown for 59 minutes has to be worth something.

The 38-year-old James Harrison—football's Benjamin Button—wreaked age-defying havoc with seven pressures on Manning, according to Pro Football Focus. Ryan Shazier and Stephon Tuitt have also often been forces in the front seven, while William Gay and Mike Mitchell (and even Sean Davis and Artie Burns lately) have performed well in the secondary. 

The Steelers have had some bad days on defense, but they've now surrendered 16 or fewer points more often than any other defense in the NFL, which makes it hard at this point to view that unit as an Achilles' heel.

Team	Total
1. Pittsburgh Steelers	7
2. Minnesota Vikings	6
2. Baltimore Ravens	6
4. Philadelphia Eagles	5
4. Los Angeles Rams	5
4. Seattle Seahawks	5
4. New England Patriots	5

The Steelers still have plenty of work to do. In order to take the AFC North, they'll likely have to win at least two or three of their final four, with one of those victories likely having to come against the Ravens (also 7-5 but in first place thanks to a head-to-head victory over Pittsburgh in Week 9). 

"We're nowhere near where it needs to be," Harrison said following the game, per ESPN.com's Jeremy Fowler. "It's going to take time."

But right now, with Roethlisberger, Bell and Brown playing their best football of the season and the defense putting it together, the Steelers look like more than just the favorite in that division. As they get hot at the perfect time, this is beginning to look like a team capable of defeating anyone it faces in December, January and even February.

Brad Gagnon has covered the NFL for Bleacher Report since 2012.

Follow @Brad_Gagnon