Jan 7, 2017 4 min read

It might come down to third down.

The Steelers are favored by 10 points over the Dolphins and they should advance in the playoffs with a win today. If they don’t, it might be because the Dolphins did a better job on third down.

Their defense allowed opponents to convert 36.2 percent of the time, fourth best in the NFL. The Steelers defense was ranked 23rd at 41.1 percent.

What’s the best way to limit those third down conversions? Make them as long as possible. And that’s not easy to do if you’re having trouble stopping the run.

The Dolphins gave up 4.8 yards a carry in the regular season, which was tied for last in the NFL. The Steelers were in the middle, allowing 4.3 a carry. They were fifth last season when Cam Heyward was healthy.

Hello Le’Veon Bell and hello Jay Ajayi.

You know all about Bell. He’s the most productive back in the league and will be geeked up to play in his first playoff game.

You probably remember Ajayi running for 204 yards against the Steelers in Week 6. He finished with over 1,200 yards and averaged 4.9 a carry.

In the pre-pass-happy NFL, this would be a classic cold weather, running and run-stopping playoff game.

That rarely happens in 2017 and a return to yesteryear is the Dolphins’ only chance.

And there’s not much chance of that happening.

I think the Steelers win, 27-10.

• As the 2016 post season begins, the NFL is in a dink-and-dunk funk. Minnesota Vikings quarterback Sam Bradford finished the season with a completion percentage of 71.1. His average gain per completion was 9.9 yards.

Dink meet dunk.

To give you some perspective on that 71.1 percent, Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints has the highest career completion average in NFL history at 66.6 percent. If you like screen passes and dump offs, you love today’s NFL.

Seven of the top 10 completion percentages in NFL history are held by current quarterbacks. Peyton Manning, who just retired after last season, has the 6th highest in history.

Ben Roethlisberger is 12th and Tom Brady 14th.

Otto Graham is tied with Kordell Stewart for 112th at 55.8.

Johnny Unitas is tied with Bubby Brister for 129th at 54.6.

Norm Van Brocklin is tied with Mike Tomczak for 141st at 53.4.

Terry Bradshaw is 157th at 51.9

Have humans gotten better at throwing an oblong object?

No. Offensive coordinators have gotten better at exploiting the NFL’s draconian rules for pass defenders.

All those completions might translate into a more exciting game if they were thrown, you know, down the field, instead of behind the line of scrimmage or into the flat.

But that’s where most of the dinks and dunks go.

I’ll bet you didn’t know that a former Steelers player has the highest average yards per completion in NFL history. And he also was the punter. Ed Brown, who finished his career with the Steelers, averaged 16.9 yards a completion. He was the Steelers’ quarterback in 1963 when they went 7-4-3 and almost won their first division title. He averaged 17.9 per completion that season.

His leading receiver was Buddy Dial, who caught 60 passes for 1,295 yards. That’s 21.6 per catch. That was his second-best year with the Steelers. He averaged 24.3 in 1960.

Antonio Brown averaged 12.1 in the 2016 regular season and, trust me, he has a lot more yards after the catch than Dial had.

Believe it or not, there was a time when the forward pass was a risky play in the NFL because the ball, more often than not, actually spent more than a half second in the air.

Carolina’s Cam Newton has the highest career yards per completion among current quarterbacks at 12.7. That’s 55th on the all-time list.

Roethlisberger at 12.3 is tied for 80th with Russell Wilson.

Brady – considered by some the greatest of all time – at 11.7 is tied for 134th with Manning, Jay Cutler and Carson Palmer.

Bradshaw, whose career is often diminished by the clueless because of his completion percentage and interceptions, is 25th in yards per completion at 13.8.

Today’s quarterbacks get paid more, but I’m pretty sure the old timers had more fun.

And they were more fun to watch.

John Steigerwald writes a Sunday sports column for the Observer-Reporter.