From one point of view, you can say that the Pittsburgh Steelers finishing a season 8-8 puts them in familiar territory. They finished with that same record in consecutive seasons not so long ago, in both the 2012 and 2013 seasons. Yet those years were quite different from this. Even those were different from one another.
In 2012, for example, the Steelers went 6-3 in their first nine games. Ben Roethlisberger was injured in that ninth game, however, and they struggled when he missed time. When he returned, he was not playing at the same level.