7-9?

Updating last night's item about what's happened to the Steelers in past seasons with a 1-2 start, I checked in with Bill Barnwell at Football Outsiders to see if they might have any hard figures on what happens to a 1-2 team. They did, and its not good:

"Dan: Ironically, I actually did a piece on exactly this in the Steelers essay in our book two years ago.

Teams that started the season 1-2 (timeframe: 1990-2007) won an average of 6.0 games the rest of the way; they've made the playoffs 22.7% of the time. ..."

But take heart, Steelers fans. A potential silver lining exists, as Barnwell explains ...

"Of course, the Steelers are playing better than most 1-2 teams; the most recent set of DVOA ratings for the '09 season, which we published Tuesday evening, suggests that the Steelers have been the 14th-best team in football so far, and the best 1-2 team in the league besides the Seahawks."

So in essence, the Steelers are among the best of the bad teams right now, but that could change.