Who is to blame for this historically dysfunctional Steelers situation?

One explanation for the Steelers’ bleak state of the union: bad luck at pivotal turns. An alternate reality with few modifications would place the franchise in potentially far better standing than it is now.

A common-sense ruling of the Jesse James play gives the Steelers home-field advantage and a friendlier Super Bowl LII route. They possessed more talent than the 2017 Patriots, the latest Pats iteration to benefit from playing a Steelers team without the full services of its marquee trio. A strong case exists that the '17 Steelers team, armed with seven Pro Bowlers without Ryan Shazier, would have taken part in an all-Pennsylvania Super Bowl had James’ touchdown reception stood.

The 2015 Steelers had the eventual champion Broncos on the ropes in the playoffs without Antonio Brown or Le’Veon Bell. Had Vontaze Burfict not concussed Brown the week before, those Steelers may have headed to the AFC championship game as live underdogs. 

Had at least one of these sequences played out differently, the Steelers are stronger and maybe do not have to navigate much of the turbulence they have over the past several months.

Another explanation for the present circumstances: This model organization has regressed and has management issues on multiple levels. The Steelers’ big-stage shortcomings and the near-certain March departures of Bell and Brown represent a seismic macro failure.

As it stands now, dysfunction will define this era — not the three AFC North titles, the 54-25-1 record since 2014 or the assembling of the second-best offensive nucleus in team history. Art Rooney II is incorrect: His franchise has a major culture problem. And general manager Kevin Colbert’s recent comments do not reveal accountability.

Someone should have to answer for the Steelers’ situation, perhaps at a level above Mike Tomlin. 

Letting the Bell drama escalate cost the 2018 team a playoff berth. Pittsburgh’s wizardry in identifying receiver talent aside, Brown’s impending exit could torpedo a dominant offense that has been heavily reliant on him for years. 

Losing both superstars in their primes without receiving a first-round pick in return is an abject failure.

Day 2 draft compensation — via whatever the Brown return produces, and the 2020 third-round compensatory pick from Bell's signing — would help a different type of team more than this one.

Absorbing a $21 million dead-money hit to trade their best player represents a massive Steelers PR blow. No return will bring face value, and the forthcoming trade resulting in Brown dead money comprising nearly a ninth of Pittsburgh's cap limits the front office’s ability to supplement an aging roster.

The Steelers’ cornerstone players are north of 30 or will be soon. His presence keying the Steelers' relevance, Ben Roethlisberger was always the most important member of the “Killer B’s” troika. But injuries make him an old 37 (in boxing parlance). How many more good seasons are left? More draft picks will not help him like his longtime All-Pro teammates would have.

Being dealt bad hands has been the Steeler norm. Bell missed the 2014 playoff opener — a home loss to the Ravens. He left the 2016 AFC championship game — a Patriots rout — in the first quarter. Shazier’s absence crippled the 2017 defense, which ceded 45 points to a Blake Bortles-led offense in the Ben-Bell-Brown finale. The James reversal, in a game Brown left due to a second-quarter injury, was so controversial that the NFL changed the rule.

Pittsburgh also annually succumbs to bad losses (or ties). Mike Glennon quarterbacked the 2017 Bears (5-11) to one win before being replaced; the Steelers missed home-field advantage by one win. In 2015, Pittsburgh lost to a Ryan Mallett-piloted Baltimore outfit. The 11-5 2014 team lost at home to the 2-14 Buccaneers (more Glennon) and dropped a 31-10 game to the Browns.

Last season expanded the catalog, with Hue Jackson's Browns forging a tie before losses in Denver (the fallout from which Brown blames others while taking no responsibility himself for causing this imminent divorce) and Oakland led to the Ravens winning the division.

Tomlin’s two Super Bowl appearances and eight playoff berths in 12 seasons give him an upper-echelon resume. Only the Patriots, Packers and Seahawks have more postseason bookings than the Steelers’ six this decade. Tomlin’s recent teams have revealed flaws, and the disciplinary measures have been shaky. The defensively oriented coach’s defenses have failed in big spots, and the 2017 season required a few saves from Todd Haley’s offense to beat non-playoff teams. 

Tomlin benefits from the Steelers’ continuity-centric mantra (three head coaches since 1969). But his teams' penchant for letdowns and NFL news cycle content should at least call his job security into question.

None of these problems seems to land on Colbert, which is strange given the Bell saga and the Steelers’ cautious free agency approaches limiting their ability to cover up draft misses (and there have been a few big ones in recent first rounds).

While this era's champions have used free agency or trades to plan parades — the Seahawks buying a pass rush, the Patriots’ Darrelle Revis addition and frequent swaps, the Broncos overhauling their defense, and the Eagles widespread outside-augmentation effort — Colbert has not given Roethlisberger similar help when necessary. Joe Haden has played well. So has Vance McDonald. There have not been enough attempts like this, with last year’s poor effort to replace Shazier the latest example.

Colbert and Tomlin have achieved plenty, the 20th-year GM being the architect of two Steelers championships. But the myriad dramas overshadowing everything else lately do not provide much faith that this is the tandem to lead the franchise out of trouble.

Brown loses credibility with each public statement (and weakens Colbert's ability to call his bluff and attempt to bring him back), though Colbert isn't helping matters. The team that signs Bell (1,541 regular-season touches) to a big contract will likely regret it. While James Conner can be a poor man's Bell, the Steelers will voyage into new territory in attempting to replace Brown. They have effectively found productive receivers for decades, but Brown is an all-time great.

These debacles have damaged the Steelers’ reputation. 

Presiding over them, along with one of the NFL’s signature 21st-century underachievement stretches, Rooney and Colbert not acknowledging a problem exists is troubling. At some point this amounts to a lack of institutional control.

Amid this chaos, the Ravens and Browns are in position to threaten the contention route of a Steelers core that does not have much time left. For the first time in several years, Pittsburgh does not enter free agency with a roster appearing capable of a Super Bowl climb. If the younger AFC North nuclei surpass the Steelers this season, the franchise will take another hit.

What will stop the fusillade of bad press is the team showing it still possesses the infrastructure necessary to compete without its departing stars. Short of that, it will be time to rebuild.

And the Steelers of this era did not accomplish enough to make that endgame tolerable.