Nov 23, 2015 3 min read

At 10 games into the season, were are officially headed down the home stretch in the NFL.

And we’ve seen some things change over the past couple of weeks.

Denver lost two games in a row with a hobbled Peyton Manning and then struggled to win at Chicago with Brock Osweiler in his place.

Cincinnati has now lost its past two games.

New England is now without Julian Edelman and Dion Lewis and has an offensive line held together by chicken wire.

Houston and Indianapolis have come to life in the AFC South, while Kansas City, left for dead after a five-game losing streak, has now won its past four to get back into the playoff chase, and the Jets have lost four of their past five.

Welcome to the roller coaster that is the NFL.

The Steelers have positioned themselves pretty well in the AFC playoff chase, all things considered.

At 6-4, they hold down the top wildcard spot in the conference and are one of just four teams that have winning records – New England, Denver and Cincinnati are the others.

The Steelers have a tough matchup this week at Seattle and still have Denver at home and Cincinnati on the road. But those final two appear to be winnable games.

They also host Indianapolis and have games at Baltimore and Cleveland, but should be able to string together the three to four wins they’ll need to get into the playoffs.

The division title? That’s still a pipe dream despite Cincinnati’s two losses in the past two weeks.

Why? The Bengals face teams down the stretch that have a combined 26-34 record. The only two games they have remaining against teams with winning records are against the Steelers in three weeks and at Denver in late December.

And even if the Steelers and Bengals somehow finish tied at say, 11-5, the Bengals would likely win the tiebreaker based on a better divisional record.

Does anyone seriously believe the Bengals will lose to Cleveland or a Joe Flacco-less Ravens team down the stretch? Nope, not any more than they would believe the Steelers will lose a game to one of those teams.

So wildcard it is. And that’s fine.

This team has played really well this season despite a myriad of injuries that could have been devastating. Before the season began, I thought it was a Super Bowl contender because of an outstanding offense and a defense I thought would grow along the way.

The defense has been better than advertised but the offense has continually been crippled by injuries.

The Steelers could still be a Super Bowl contender with Ben Roethlisberger now healthy, but that doesn’t look likely. It could, however, make a decent run into the playoffs, get some key postseason experience and set itself up for a strong run in 2016.

That might not be what many Steelers fans want to hear. Heck, it’s not what the Steelers want to hear. But it’s reality as things currently stand.

Then again, as we’ve seen this season, things can quickly change.