Saunders: Improved Steelers Might Not Show It for a While
The Pittsburgh Steelers are a better team in 2024 than they were in 2023, but it might take a playoff trip to reveal it.
ATLANTA — The Pittsburgh Steelers are a much better team in 2024 than they were in 2023.
It doesn’t take much to look around the locker room, or glance at the roster, to realize that.
Arthur Smith is a better and more accomplished offensive coordinator than Matt Canada was. Both Russell Wilson and Justin Fields represent upgrades over the Kenny Pickett, Mitch Trubisky and Mason Rudolph troika last season.
The Steelers offensive line, though banged up at the moment, has received an injection of talent in the form of three new highly drafted young players.
The defense should expect to play much more than the one quarter they got with a healthy Cam Heyward, Minkah Fitzpatrick and T.J. Watt all on the field at the same time in 2023.
Around them, newcomers Patrick Queen, Payton Wilson, DeShon Elliott and Donte Jackson have seamless fit into what looks on paper to be one of, if not the very best defenses in the league. Joey Porter Jr., Keeanu Benton and Nick Herbig have gone from untested rookies to promising young stars.
Even the special teams are better, with punting Cameron Johnston making a huge impression this preseason with his big leg.
You have to look pretty hard to find a place where the Steelers aren’t better. Wide receiver seems to the be the popular one to point out. Slot cornerback is putting a lot of weight on the shoulders of undrafted rookie Beanie Bishop.
Other than those two positions, and maybe punt gunner, it’s hard to ask much more than what Omar Khan did to revamp this roster from last season to today.
And yet, it’s not good enough.
There are only two ways to reliably go deep into the NFL postseason. You can either have an elite franchise quarterback (the Kansas City Chiefs, Buffalo Bills, Cincinnati Bengals, Baltimore Ravens), or you can have a team and a scheme so deep and consistent that it can succeed without one (the Philadelphia Eagles, San Francisco 49ers, and maybe the Detroit Lions if they can repeat their 2023 success.) Maybe the Houston Texans can get there this year.
Look at the quarterbacks in the AFC Championship Game over the last decade or so:
Patrick Mahomes vs. Lamar Jackson
Mahomes vs. Joe Burrow
Burrow vs. Mahomes
Mahomes vs. Josh Allen
Mahomes vs. Ryan Tannehill
Tom Brady vs. Mahomes
Brady vs. Blake Bortles
Brady vs. Ben Roethlisberger
Payton Manning vs. Brady
Brady vs. Andrew Luck
The Tannehill-led Titans, with Smith as their offensive coordinator, are the closest thing to a second lane team in there. The 2017 Jaguars simply got lucky when the Steelers handed them a playoff win.
Outside of just dumb luck, the Steelers do not have the ingredients to have a long playoff run. Wilson and Fields are not that level of quarterback. The offensive line is too young and the receiving options too thin to feel that the offense can have that kind of run in them. Smith is four years from his greatest success. Was he simply poorly suited to being a head coach or has the NFL figured him out?
There are too many uncertainties there, despite the improvements, to feel that these Steelers are a real contender to make noise this January.
But they should get there. It’s a better team than it was last year, and that team wasn’t all that far from giving the Bills a scare in Orchard Park. Imagine those Steelers with Elliott, Queen and Payton Wilson to take away Dawson Knox and Dalton Kincaid. Imagine the difference a healthy Heyward and Watt would have made.
These Steelers are not real contenders. But they are contenders to do something that the frustrated fanbase has made an obsession: win a playoff game.
The problem is, they’ll have to get there first. Last year’s Steelers went 5-1 in the division and won three straight games down the stretch to finish 10-7 and make the postseason tournament. In those divisional games, they faced Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson and DeShaun Watson just twice.
They can’t count on that happening again. This time around, those divisional games are packed at the end of a loaded 2024 schedule, along with a trip to Philadelphia and a home game agains the Chiefs.
The Steelers play six games in our above list of Super Bowl contenders. They’re in the final eight weeks of the season. If the Steelers are only as good as they were in 2023 this coming season, they won’t come close to repeating that 10-7 record.
It’s going to take a much better team to get there. I think they are one. So for my 2024 Steelers season prediction, I’m saying the Steelers will finish 9-8, but win a road playoff game to break their seven-year drought.
STEELERS GAME-BY-GAME PREDICTION
Week 1 at Atlanta Falcons, L
Week 2 at Denver Broncos, W
Week 3 vs. Los Angeles Chargers, W
Week 4: at Indianapolis Colts, L
Week 5: vs. Dallas Cowboys, L
Week 6: at Las Vegas Raiders, W
Week 7: vs. New York Jets, W
Week 8: vs. New York Giants, W
Week 10: at Washington Commanders, W
Week 11: vs. Baltimore Ravens, W
Week 12: at Cleveland Browns, L
Week 13: at Cincinnati Bengals, L
Week 14: vs. Cleveland Browns, W
Week 15: at Philadelphia Eagles, L
Week 16: at Baltimore Ravens, L
Week 17: vs. Kansas City Chiefs, L
Week 18: vs. Cincinnati Bengals, W
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