Should the Steelers rest their starters?

[Mojouw]

Because anything can happen with weather, wind, fumbles, but yes ultimately at this point it would have been better to go 3-14 and get a shot at a high pick. Unfortunately barring some very lucky drafting this team is going to be stuck in this position for a very long time. I'm not going to rehash what I've already posted multiple times. Coach .501 is what he is. A Coach that keeps his team competitive but not the cream of the crop. Unless we hit pay dirt with a QB somewhere this team will be a .501 team.

You have basically described every team in the NFL.

Honestly, I don't wish to argue with you. You and others can feel any single darn way you want about the state of the Steelers. I just can not understand where you are coming from. No one is winning without high end QB play. Either you get that QB play from having a honest to goodness good QB or you get it by Jed mind tricking some previously mediocre QB into playing better through fancy schmancy scheme stuff.

And, looking at it across the league, the scheme wizardry gets you a couple of seasons. Look at Miami, they had injuries and other issues and it doesn't look good. Daboll coaxed a decent year out of Daniel Jones and now the Giants are picking top 3 in the draft -- again. The Niners (the gold standard for Jedi trickery) fell apart when they didn't have their top guys. Other teams have weathered similar spates of injuries and not collapsed. The Bucs are currently just the Steelers with more wideouts.

If I can understand things, folks want the Steelers to be an exceptional case. The 1 of 1 franchise that achieves playoff victories, regardless of the state of the roster, specifically the QB position. I will grant that we can split the recent playoff drought into two boxes (2016-18 and 2019-24). The one box was disappointing, the other is a wonder they are even in the bracket.

And, again I am NOT picking on you (you were good enough to respond!), but the "hey get in and anything can happen thing" is hard for me to square as well. If the Steelers squeak a bad team into the playoffs, "hey they should win a few rounds and you never know!" but if they bring a good squad to the playoffs and get beat...the same ideas do not apply. Those teams were embarrassing or unprepared or whatever. If the argument is valid that it can go any way once you start the playoffs, than you have to accept it both ways. And Steelers fans do not.

There is a discussion here somewhere about expectations. And that is my point. I have never encountered a fan base as unrealistic with their expectations as Steelers fans. They truly believe the Steelers are exceptional and regularly get disappointed and angry in their reactions when the team does not experience a unique or almost totally unique outcome. The discussion and frustration over playoff victories and losses from 2019-24, for me, is the same as when people were shocked and dismayed that Trubisky didn't work out. Trubisky working out would've been an almost completely unique outcome. The 2019-24 Steelers winning playoff games is the same thing. They don't have the horses to be in the race.