Pittsburgh Steelers midseason awards: Which players stood out?

The Pittsburgh Steelers are halfway through the 2019 NFL season. Here are my midseason awards based on their first-half performances.

The Pittsburgh Steelers have had an eventful first half of the 2019 season, to say the least. Drama surrounded the organization during the offseason with Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell, making headlines for all of the wrong reasons.

After the chaos was finally resolved, Pittsburgh had a series of unfortunate events. Future Hall of Fame quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger went down for the season with a significant elbow injury. He played just a game and a half before being forced to hand the reigns over to second-year quarterback Mason Rudolph.

Four games later, the Steelers lost defensive lineman, Stephon Tuitt, for the season with a torn pectoral muscle. Tuitt was having by far the best season of his career and was on pace to crush all of his benchmarks.

Though Pittsburgh got off to a sluggish 1-4 start to the season, they have since won three straight games and are right back in the thick of things in the AFC. The moves the Steelers made for Devin Bush and Minkah Fitzpatrick have helped offset the loss of Roethlisberger and Tuitt this year, and Pittsburgh’s defense is playing better than it has since Troy Polalamu and James Harrison were making plays.

Halfway through the season, the Steelers playoff hopes are still very much alive. There are a handful of players and coaches who deserve a lot of credit for turning this football team around.

I have comprised seven fictitious midseason awards for both players and coaches, including team MVP, Rookie of the Year, and Coach of the Year. Here are my Steelers midseason awards: