The buzzards have started to circle around the Rooney Complex, ready to pick clean the skeletal remains of the Steelers' season.
Trouble is, it's not quite over yet. Heck, in many ways, it's just getting started.
But at 1-2-1 following their 26-14 loss at Heinz Field Sunday night against the Baltimore Ravens, the Steelers are well aware they need to get this thing turned around -- quickly.
"There’s room to right the ship," defensive end Cameron Heyward told me Monday. "The margin for error is smaller, but it doesn’t take away my belief that we can get it done."
This team still believes in itself, still believes it can get the job done and achieve its goals of winning the AFC North and representing the conference in the Super Bowl.
Whether that is realistic remains to be seen. But this team isn't about to give up on the season four games in.
"Heck no," Maurkice Pouncey told me. "I just love this team. I love how we fight. We’ve come back. We’re not going to come in here with a sad face. Obviously, we know there are a lot of things we need to fix and correct, but luckily, this is just the first quarter of the season and there’s room to grow. I’ve seen us before go on a winning streak of six or eight games, so we can start anteing up and see how things turn out."
Many of the veterans have also seen the Steelers dig themselves out of a deeper hole than this. In 2013, the Steelers opened the season 0-4, with lackluster losses to Tennessee, Cincinnati, Chicago and Minnesota. Two of those losses -- like this year's start -- came at Heinz Field. The loss at the hands of the Vikings -- a 34-27 defeat to a squad that also had come in winless -- was played at London's Wembley Stadium.
The Steelers had the entire trip back across the Atlantic Ocean and then a bye week to stew on what was their worst start since 1934. This doesn't feel like that to the veteran players who went through that opening streak.
"No, especially since going to London and going 0-4, it was dismal," Heyward told me. "Every year is different. There have been some headaches, but I still feel confident in this team. I did feel confident back then. But that was because I was starting the next game."
Heyward got the start in that next game over veteran Ziggy Hood, in a 16-9 win over the Jets. He held onto it the rest of that season, helping the Steelers recover from the slow start to finish 8-8 with wins in six of their final eight games.
The Steelers are playing a lot of different players both offensively and defensively already. Outside of possibly inserting linebacker Matthew Thomas more into the defensive rotation -- something that could happen anyway because of a hamstring injury to Vince Williams -- there aren't many personnel moves to make.
Corner Artie Burns was already benched for the team's win at Tampa Bay last week, splitting time with Coty Sensabaugh. But Burns got more playing time than Sensabaugh against the Ravens, even though they still split time.
Veteran safety Morgan Burnett also could return this week when the Steelers host the Atlanta Falcons (1-3), another team starved for a win. Rookie Terrell Edmunds has seen a lot of playing time with Burnett missing two of the first four games with a groin injury and struggled against Baltimore.
Mike Tomlin also could do something rash, such as relieve defensive coordinator Keith Butler of his play-calling duties.
There aren't a lot of changes Tomlin can make -- save talking Le'Veon Bell into signing his franchise tag tender, something ESPN reported could happen during the Week 7 bye.
Barring that, the offense appears as if it will continue to largely be the same -- though the team has to figure out a way to run the ball more effectively, whether it be with James Conner or backup Stevan Ridley, who didn't get a carry against the Ravens.
That was much the same in 2013, when Bell, then a rookie, missed the first three games of the season with a foot injury, returning against the Vikings to make his Steelers debut.
That team just missed the playoffs -- and in fact has been the last Steelers team to do so. And it went down to the wire, with the Steelers winning in Week 17 to get to 8-8 and needing Baltimore, Miami and the Chargers to all lose to sneak into the playoffs.
The Steelers did their part, beating the Browns in the finale, while Baltimore and Miami also lost. But the Chargers edged the Chiefs, 27-24, in overtime, with Kansas City missing a field goal at the end of regulation that would have sent the Steelers to the postseason.
That was a team in transition for the Steelers. It still had some veterans remaining from its Super Bowl runs in 2005, 2008 and 2010. But it was largely comprised of some young, up-and-coming stars such as Heyward, Pouncey, Bell and guard David DeCastro, all of whom were in their fourth season or less.
Now, guys such as Heyward, Pouncey and DeCastro are some of the players who are the glue expected to hold this locker room together.
Their message will be simple.
"Your confidence always gets shaken when you’re losing, yeah," DeCastro told me. "What’s not going right, what’s going wrong, you’re looking around and that’s what happens. You kind of have to look at yourself and figure out what you can do to make it better. Don’t worry about anything outside of that."