It was the Sports Illustrated Cover curse. For whatever reason, when Brown left and JuJu got on the cover of Sports Illustrated as a "Millennial Man" showing him playing video games, things started to go downhill.
I know the QB play was bad, but it wasn't just all their fault. The O-line didn't pay as well. The running game was a lot worse. And the receivers all played poorly, included Smith-Shuster.
It's optimism time in the NFL off-season. I get it. This time frame from April to July makes every fan base happy. Draft picks will all work out. No one is injured. And groups that played well, continue to be great and groups that underperformed have been "fixed".
We'll see how things work out. This team needs to work HARD. And there are a lot of players that need to do better on offense and a lot of defenders that need to maintain their intensity. Tomlin has a lot to do.
I worry about the work ethic this off-season. I think it will be too easy for offensive players to just say "Roethlisberger is back and will fix things" and I think it will be too easy for our defensive players to think "this year will be like last year" (particularly with turnovers and sacks). Every fiber of this coaching staff have to fight against those thoughts in our players. I even worry TOMLIN has to fight against those thoughts.
If we can do that, there's an opportunity. But if we just think it will happen, I think things could stay very status quo and regress into a mediocre season (8-8, 9-7 or such).