I've always believed that the 2011 Steelers were better than the 2010 team, although as it was the end of the run of that core group, they were a lot like the 1979 Steelers in that regard. And they did have to go through a bit of transition to start the season so it was a tough 2-2 start. Two things that really helped the Steelers - particularly on offense - over the next 10 weeks: similar to Bettis ceding his role as the primary RB to Parker, Ward ceded to Brown and Ben resumed the trajectory he was on in 2009, given that he was not under the spectre of the Midgeville incident.
The injuries to Mendenhall and Ben before the playoff game in Denver really were devastating and the loss to Baltimore with 8 seconds left - the only time Ben lost to the Ravens in the last minute - but us down 0-2 to the Ravens, and made a 12-4 team that easily would have been 13-3 and the #1 seed otherwise, obviously proved too much to overcome.
I have often said that the 2017 Steelers were the most talented Steelers team I’ve ever seen. That excludes the 78/79 teams as I wasn’t old enough to appreciate or understand what I was watching with my dad.
Still, most talented doesn’t mean the best team. There was a closeness & chemistry that existed on the 2000s teams (and 1990s teams) that never quite happened with the 2014-2018 teams, despite being loaded with talent. They won more because of individual talent, but never quite felt like a united team that had the drive to win the Super Bowl as a unit.
Just compare the 2005 Steelers to the 2017 Steelers.
In 2005, the Steelers strength was a dominant defense full of team leaders and an elite OL. From a skill player standpoint, with the loss of Burress to FA, there was only one "skill" player with experience in their prime: Hines Ward. Bettis was the short yardage back, Randle El was not a great #2 WR and while extremely talented - Ben, Parker and Miller were ascending to their prime not there yet. However, together they were more than the sum of their parts and were really a tough team to beat.
In 2017, the Steelers strength was the explosive offense with stacked with AB/JuJu at WR, Bell at RB, and Ben at his peak years at QB with an elite OL. The defense was not at the level as the 2005 unit, and the Shazier injury was devastating, but still had some great talent on it. But they never truly came together as a unit and were individuals more than the sum of their parts. The 3 games winning vs. teams with backup QBs who they should have blown out and instead needed to win with a Boz FG with 0:00 seconds left. They just never put it all together and hence, lost to a Jags team they were already looking past.
Then the drama really started to come out.