Surprise: an ex-Steelers defender thinks Pittsburgh will

dethrone the Patriots as AFC champions The New England Patriots have been the NFL’s model franchise for the past 18 years. No team has had similar success since Bill Belichick and Tom Brady led the team to its first Super Bowl championship after the 2001 season. Since then White Duron Harmon Jerseys , the Patriots have made it back to the game’s biggest stage seven more times – three of which during the last four seasons.Safe to say, the Patriots will again be heavily favored to represent their conference in the Super Bowl this season. According to former NFL safety Ryan Clark, however, 2018 might be the year one of New England’s long-time rivals will dethrone the two-time reigning AFC champions: the Pittsburgh Steelers, the team which employed Clark for eight of his 13 years in the league.Last season, the Steelers came close to beating the Patriots in the regular season but never got the chance for a postseason rematch. Seeded as the number two team in the AFC Duron Harmon Jerseys 2019 , Pittsburgh imploded in the divisional playoff round and was defeated by the visiting Jacksonville Jaguars – a team that went on to face the Patriots in Foxboro and subsequently finish the year as the runner-ups in the conference.This year, Clark sees the Steelers get over the hump that is the Jaguars and more prominently the Patriots as he told Adam Schefter on his podcast:The Steelers certainly have a very good team that looks similar to the one that finished the 2017 season with a 13-3 record and top eight in both scoring offense and scoring defense. So naturally, Pittsburgh will be in contention for the AFC title yet again – and Clark’s prediction, despite his obvious connection with the club, is actually one that could turn out to be true after all.However, history is not on his side: with Tom Brady starting White Marcus Cannon Jerseys , the Patriots have played 13 games versus Pittsburgh. Only two of those games were won by the Steelers, and none of them over the last six years. All streaks must come to an end at one point, of course, but as long as Brady does not show signs of slowing down, he and his team should still be favored to emerge victoriously at any given time.But who knows, maybe the Steelers will never run into the Patriots in the first place – which is exactly what happened when the team won its lone two Super Bowls of the salary cap era: in both 2005 and 2008 Marcus Cannon Jerseys 2019 , Pittsburgh did not have to cross paths with New England to get to the title game. Maybe 2018 will be the same. The odds of that happening do not look too good, though, when judged by historic precedent. The playoffs became an expensive proposition for Rams cornerback Nickell Robey-Coleman. He ended the postseason with significant fines in consecutive games for applying illegal hits to defenseless receivers.The NFL has announced, via its in-house media conglomerate, that Robey-Coleman was fined $26,739 for a helmet-to-helmet hit on Patriots running back Rex Burkhead early in Super Bowl LIII. Robey-Coleman drew a flag for the hit.In the NFC title game White Brandon Bolden Jerseys , Robey-Coleman avoided, if you haven’t heard, a penalty for unnecessary roughness for a helmet-to-helmet hit on Saints receiver Tommylee Lewis. Robey-Coleman also avoided a flag for pass interference, making the outcome one of the most controversial postseason finish in years, applying an asterisk to the Rams’ Super Bowl berth and causing much of New Orleans to shun the Super Bowl.But Robey-Coleman was fined for the hit on Lewis, running the total price for a pair of illegal hits to more than $53 Brandon Bolden Jerseys 2019 ,000.