Rashard Mendenhall is lost for the season, but Pittsburgh’s season is far from lost.

The Steelers will be just fine without their top running back.

That might not have been the case 10 or 20 years ago, but a quality rushing threat is no longer needed to win in today’s brand of football.

The NFL was once a hard-nosed league, where games were won in the trenches.

It might be difficult for football purists to accept, but that’s not true anymore.

The league has made itself more friendly — and vulnerable — to quarterbacks, proven by historic numbers posted this season.

The rules have been altered enough for teams to shy away from grinding out yardage on the ground. I don’t blame them — why plow through the defense when it’s so easy to fly over it?

There were only 15 1,000-yard rushers — Mendenhall wasn’t among them — this season. Only six of them (40 percent) play for postseason teams.

The top-10 teams in rushing this year — which includes the lowly Jacksonville Jaguars and Minnesota Vikings — went a combined 89-71.

On the other hand, seven of 10 4,000-yard quarterbacks are heading to the playoffs and the top-10 passing teams — including the Steelers at No. 10 — are a combined 106-54 with each squad at least .500.

Passing has become too easy in the NFL and most quality teams don’t rely on the ground game.

Instead, offensive coordinators have turned to an aerial assault.

Drew Brees shattered Dan Marino’s 1984 record of 5,084 passing yards this year, but I still think Marino’s season was more impressive.

Marino’s campaign was unprecedented brilliance.

Brees was the first to take advantage of a soft system. If he didn’t set the mark, Tom Brady would have.

The NFL record books are getting more watered down than MLB’s all-time home run list during the steroid era.

There have been 42 occurrences of 50 or more homers in a season. Of those, 18 (42.9 percent) came from the 10-year period of 1996-2005.

Of the top-42 single-season passing performances, half of them were posted in the last five years alone. This season produced four of the top-six passing yardage totals ever.

There were 10 quarterbacks to throw for at least 4,000 yards this year. Just 10 years ago, there were only two.

Quarterbacks aren’t on steroids, but their numbers are definitely juiced in regards to historical context.

Brees needs an asterisk next to his name just as much as Barry Bonds.

MLB’s home-run explosion was due to performance-enhancing drugs and the NFL’s recent passing attack has been affected by limitations imposed on defenses.

Either way, the end result is a record book full of hollow statistics based on the league’s era.

Ben Roethlisberger and the rest of the Steelers aren’t concerned with the record book, though.

It’s all about finding a way to get to Indianapolis for the Super Bowl.

Fortunately for the Steelers, Mendenhall won’t be needed to get there.

In this new brand of football, Pittsburgh’s top-ranked pass defense is a greater asset than a running back could ever be.

Jason Orfao is a staff writer for the Butler Eagle.