BALTIMORE — As some Steelers players showered, changed and walked toward the team bus late Saturday night at M&T Bank Stadium, others remained in the visitors' dressing room, soaking in the silence.

Najee Harris wore a pair of headphones that definitely weren't necessary. A fan whirred overtop George Pickens' locker stall.

For a season defined by a gigantic thud — the Steelers suffering a 28-14 loss to the Ravens in an AFC wild-card game to end the year with five consecutive defeats — there was an eerie amount of silence in the moments that followed.

"Haven't gotten it done," Cam Heyward said quietly in a room across the hall. "Opportunity was there. Our execution was not."

It hasn't been, which takes us to another noise-based metaphor that awaits: The Steelers darn well better make some of it in the days, weeks and months ahead after how this thing unraveled.

Sure, they scored 14 points in the third quarter to make a game out of it. Russell Wilson, who completed 20 of 29 passes for 270 yards and two touchdowns, repeatedly applauded the Steelers' fight.

Had Wilson found an open receiver instead of forcing the ball to Calvin Austin III (through three Ravens defenders) on fourth-and-15 midway through the fourth quarter, perhaps this would've gone down to the wire.

Save me the positive spin or finding any way to look at this other than the brutal, unvarnished truth: The Steelers are mediocre and flawed ... and unless they're willing to admit that and act accordingly this offseason, it's hard to take anything they do seriously.

That discussion starts, of course, with coach Mike Tomlin, who has dropped six straight postseason games during a drought that stretches back eight years. Tomlin has been at the helm for far too many late-season collapses — and this might be the worst.

During their five-game losing streak, the Steelers allowed an average of 27.4 points per game. Three times their opponent gained at least 401 yards, including a season-high 464 by the Ravens, 299 of them on the ground.

A few weeks after Derrick Henry brutalized the Steelers, he showed up to the playground and did the same thing again, finishing with 186 yards and two touchdowns on 26 carries.

"They were the better group," Tomlin said. "They wore us down a little bit. The fatigue component of it became a factor."

Henry is really good. So is Lamar Jackson. But it wasn't just about what the Ravens did. Let's think about what the Steelers failed to do ... and have failed to do.

Tomlin takes an immense amount of pride in the Steelers being physical, so much so that every year we talk about those physical camps in Latrobe, how you can't box without sparring, that sort of thing.

What the heck happened early on?

The Steelers looked like they didn't want to be there in the first half, as the Ravens outgained them 308-59. That included a 164-19 edge in rushing yards.

"Where the hell is the fight?" Kirk Herbstreit said on the Amazon broadcast. "They're the Pittsburgh Steelers. They're going through the motions."

Herbstreit, of course, wasn't wrong. And I'm pretty sure it's the head coach's job to have his team ready to play, which Tomlin clearly did not.

It's also the job of the head coach to oversee the conceptualization of game plans designed to beat the other team, another glaring failure in this one.

Ravens coach John Harbaugh and offensive coordinator Todd Monken looked like they were impersonating Herman Boone's split-veer offense from "Remember the Titans" — six plays, like novocaine, give 'em time, always works.

On the Ravens' third drive, they marched 85 yards in 13 plays in 7:56, all of them runs. Jackson tortured the Steelers with zone reads. Tomlin and defensive coordinator Teryl Austin took entirely too long to adjust.

In the fourth quarter, the Steelers were also penalized for having too many men on the field, their lack of organization allowing a freebie conversion for the Ravens on what would've been an important — and close — fourth-and-1 try.

If only that was the first time that sort of thing happened.

As for their own game plan, where do we start? The Steelers failed to score on their opening drive for the 20th consecutive game. They've also failed to score in the first quarter of their past five playoff games, allowing 63 points in the process. They had a whopping two first downs (to 19 for the Ravens) in the opening 30 minutes.

"We weren't good enough," Tomlin said. "A drop here and there and things of that nature, when you're playing good people, it really gets highlighted. We just weren't good enough."

What the Steelers did after halftime felt like a mirage comeback for a mirage season.

In baseball, there's a term called "eyewash" for an action or activity that really doesn't mean anything ... it's just kind of meant to look good. That's how it felt watching the Steelers score on their first two drives of the third quarter on Wilson passes to Van Jefferson and Pickens.

The Steelers were still outgained by 184 yards and were nearly doubled in time of possession. They still watched their season wash away, as their division rival did the exact opposite — peaking with a four-game winning streak, playing complementary football and solving some defensive woes.

It's also why I kept thinking about the idea of noises versus silence, a dynamic that has framed the better part of the Steelers' existence.

They've long preferred to deal in the latter, craving stability and in-house hires and simply hitting the mute button when the former grows too loud. Here's hoping they finally take a different approach.

I don't know if they'll move on from Tomlin. There's an overwhelming amount of evidence that says they'll do nothing and trust the process. But we're also aware of what championship football looks like, and how the Steelers comported themselves in this one is not that.

"They definitely put a belt to butt today," DeShon Elliott said.

It's also not one game. Elliott said he was aware of the Steelers' reputation before signing with them last offseason, knowing they've started strong but struggled to have the same sort of oomph at the end of seasons.

Elliott's frustration was obvious after this loss, his tone low, his answers trailing off.

"I know that we've played well at the beginning of the season, then [crapped] the bed at the end," Elliott said. "Same thing happened this year. We have to figure out what's the problem. We have to figure out how to get better.

"We have to figure out how to get past that point. We have to figure out how to finish strong in seasons to go into the playoffs hot."

Team president Art Rooney II said last offseason that the organization was fed up. "We've had enough of this," he stated. "It's time to get some [playoff wins]. It's time to take those next steps."

Don't let the second half or a handful of victories against bad teams fool you. The Steelers did not. They figured out how to go ice cold. It has been a concerning trend, too. One that everyone can see.

There's something amiss here. What occurred against the Ravens felt like a symptom of a larger problem on the inside.

But as long as the Rooneys continue to prefer silence instead of fixing the problems that have been screeching and squealing to everyone on the outside, we're all just wasting our time thinking the mediocre results will ever change.

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