The Detroit Lions (8-6) and Pittsburgh Steelers (7-6) will square off in a Week 16 interdivisional battle between two teams with NFL playoff aspirations. While we know the outcome of the Lions\u2019 Week 15 game, the Steelers have yet to play\u2014they take on the Miami Dolphins on \u201cMonday Night Football\u201d\u2014but that won\u2019t prevent the sports betting sites from taking a look ahead to Week 16.<\/p>\n
The Steelers currently sit atop the AFC North, but that is more an indictment of how much of a mess the division has been in 2025, rather than praise for Pittsburgh. After starting the season with a 3-1 record, they\u2019ve gone 4-5 since and have not recorded back-to-back wins\u2014something they\u2019ll be hoping to accomplish on Monday night.<\/p>\n
While the Steelers are in a prime position to make the playoffs and potentially host a playoff game, Pittsburgh fans and analysts are frustrated with the team\u2019s performance and have spent most of the season hoping for change.<\/p>\n
Steelers fans have squarely pointed their fingers at the Pittsburgh coaching staff as the root of the team\u2019s problems, blaming coach Mike Tomlin for his decisions in staffing, offseason player acquisition, and lack of change\/adaptability in their scheme. While Steelers fans have started \u201cFire Tomlin\u201d chants during games, no coach has come under more fire than defensive coordinator Teryl Austin.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe defensive scheme is ass. The DC needs to get the (expletive) up out of there. Teryl Austin. He was the DB coach when I was there. I didn\u2019t think he was that great then, you know what I\u2019m saying? Now he\u2019s the DC. It\u2019s an opportunistic defense. \u2026 They\u2019ve been running the same (expletive) every year with no adjustment.\u201d<\/p>\n
On offense, despite the addition of quarterback Aaron Rodgers, they\u2019ve struggled to stay on the field and create consistent drives. While his passer rating of 96.2 is decent, the rest of his statistics are mediocre, as he has become more of a checkdown artist in his later years. Rodgers has thrown the ball beyond 10 yards on only 22.7% of his passing attempts, is averaging 5.8 air yards per attempt, and just 3.3 air yards per completion; all three stats are the lowest in the NFL. He\u2019s coming off a 284-yard passing performance against the Ravens (his highest total on the season), but it\u2019s also the first time in a month he\u2019s thrown for more than 161 yards in a game.<\/p>\n
Despite the inconsistency and underachieving play, the Steelers remain in contention for the postseason, making them a dangerous opponent for a Lions team that likely needs to win their remaining three games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Detroit Lions (8-6) and Pittsburgh Steelers (7-6) will square off in a Week 16 interdivisional battle between…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[22257,21740,73,75,74],"class_list":["post-61213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-detroit-lions-gambling-odds","tag-detroit-lions-news","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}