Things are very bad for the Pittsburgh Steelers. They’re fresh off a thrashing at home by the Buffalo Bills, giving up 23 second-half points while failing to stop the same run play over and over again.

Steelers fans rained down boos on the home team Sunday night on the North Shore and even chanted “Fire Tomlin!” during the loss. Oh, and they even booed the playing of Renegade. That should tell you all you need to know about where the Steelers are at the moment. 

And yet, NFL Network’s Kyle Brandt isn’t giving up faith in his preseason pick to make the playoffs. In fact, he’s doubling down on it, starting with Week 14 against the Baltimore Ravens on the road.

Appearing on Good Morning Football Monday, Brandt made a bold Steelers prediction.

“After one of the worst, most listless Steelers losses you’ll see in this generation, I think they’re gonna win next week at Baltimore,” Brandt said, according to video via his X account. “I do, because this is how the Steelers work. You get to 6-6, all is lost. It’s post-apocalyptic, everything. Fire this person, cut this person, and they find a way to win and the gravity kicks in. This is right where the Mike Tomlin Steelers live. When it seems like all hope is lost, oh, what do you know? They win two out of their next three and things are going well. I think that they’re going to win at Baltimore next week. ’cause I have seen this before. Maybe not this dismal.

“But [Aaron] Rodgers will play, the defensive line out of nowhere is gonna be all over Lamar [Jackson]. This is how it works.”

Everything does seem post-apocalyptic at the moment. The Steelers were bludgeoned on their home field. The fan base is irate at what the Steelers have become in recent years. They seem so much further away from competing in today’s NFL than ever before.

They’re old, they’re beaten up, and very little is going right for the franchise that underwent significant roster change this offseason.

But Brandt is right: when the Steelers have their backs against a wall under Tomlin, they tend to respond. Comments from T.J. Watt and Aaron Rodgers after the game about accountability and figuring things out certainly felt intense.

Will the actions speak louder than those words this week? That’s the hope, considering a win over the Ravens on the road would put the Steelers back in control of the AFC North. Brandt sees that happening and he has no doubt about it.

“When all hope is lost, guess what happens next? Good things. I think they’ll win at Baltimore next week. I don’t apologize for it,” Brandt said. “Tomlin’s gonna say something, watch in his next press [conference]. He’s gonna have some quote, ‘We’re gonna be like, we need zippers, not buttons. It’s like the zippers work together and the zippers have teeth. We are not a team of buttons. We are a team of zippers.’

“And they’ll come out and be like, ‘Alright, makes sense.’ And then they’ll play like zippers the next week. It’ll happen, watch.”

It’s very possible that happens. Granted, the Ravens have won their last two games against the Steelers and dominated them late in the season last year, including in the AFC Wild Card Round. But that is in the past.

Brandt sees the Steelers shocking the Ravens — and the fan base — with a Week 14 win on the road.