With the Pittsburgh Steelers heading off to training camp in just mere days, it’s worth taking a peek at the NFL landscape to decide if the organization is constructed in such a way that would allow them to make a run to the Super Bowl. Having not won a single playoff game since the 2016 postseason, coaches, fans and players alike are all anxious to wipe away this feeling of defeat.
The year 2018 ushered in a completely new era of NFL football, with coincides directly with the arrival of Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes. Of course, everyone in the city got a front row seat and preview of what was to come after Mahomes tossed six touchdown passes at Heinz Field in just his third career start. Since then, Kansas City has been the gold standard for the AFC conference and a real deterrent for anyone else looking to hoist that Lombardi Trophy. Just how good do you have to be to make a run to the Super Bowl in today’s day and age.
THE EPA/PLAY EQUATION
Since 2018, 22 of the 24 teams to reach conference championship games have finished inside the top ten in offensive EPA/play. If you aren’t familiar with this statistic, you can read here, but in essence, it calculates how a unit performs relative to expectations while assigning a point value to every play. As you can see, it’s one of the most predictive figures of team success and a big reason that it’s become widely popular in the analytics community. The two teams that failed to reach this barometer were the reigning Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs and the 2021 Cincinnati Bengals, both of which finished at 11th in this particular statistic.
You could look at a number of different metrics such as points per drive or success rate and they’re all going to tell you the same thing in a different way: if you want to truly compete in today’s landscape, you have to be able to put points on the board. There are always exceptions to every rule and the word “never” be deployed when making predictions about the future but this is a fact that has become essentially non-negotiable right now. Of course, the easiest way to remain in championship contention is to have a superstar quarterback. The problem with that is that there are only so few of those guys that can reach those heights and everyone wants one. Recent San Francisco 49ers teams under offensive guru Kyle Shanahan have given run-oriented offenses a glimmer of hope despite not finishing the job in the big game.
For decades, there was this old saying that defenses wins championships and it was viewed as the law. But since 2018, only 10 of the 24 teams to reach the conference championship round have boasted top-ten defenses. Over the past two years, we’ve seen this stabilize a little bit more with defensive coordinators finding some answers in the form of taking away easy access explosives away from the top tier quarterbacks. With that being said, the 2023 Detroit Lions were below average on the defensive side of the ball and the 2022 Kansas City defense was middle of the road in most statistics but were still good enough to win the Super Bowl.
DEFENSES WIN CHAMPIONSHIPS?
It’s obviously still incredibly helpful to have a good, or even great defense, and anyone denying that just isn’t paying attention. Ideally, the best teams have the capacity to beat you in a myriad of different ways, whether that’s through the air on offense, running the ball down your throat with the run game or simply grinding out low scoring affairs in less than ideal weather conditions. However, there is a clear side of the ball that is more important in today’s NFL. That doesn’t mean that it’s always going to be like that either, because this league is cyclical in nature: what’s old is new and vice versa. As of right now, offense is king.
What really got me thinking about this was a question I received recently about the ceiling of the Steelers defense as currently constructed. When you dissect the Steelers’ defense on paper, you’ll see: superstar talent in T.J. Watt and Minkah Fitzpatrick, productive assets like Patrick Queen and Alex Highsmith, ascending talents in Joey Porter Jr. and Keeanu Benton. That’s before you add in Cam Heyward, who is back to full health and at worst, still a very good run defender and heart of soul of their locker room. Are there areas of concern? Absolutely but you can pick apart every unit in the NFL and find reason for worry. But having said, there’s absolutely a realistic path to them being the best defense in the entire league next year. The question is, will that be enough?
TODAY’S NFL NEEDS HIGH-SCORING OFFENSE TO THRIVE
The current era of football doesn’t offer a ton of hope for a team with a dominant defense without a proper high-scoring capable threat on the other side. We’ve had some really impressive defensive outputs in recent seasons but none of the top defenses in EPA/play have reached the Super Bowl in that frame and half of them didn’t even win a playoff game. The 2023 Cleveland Browns were statistically one of the best defenses we’ve seen in over a decade but were demolished by the Houston Texans in the wild card round. The 2022 San Francisco 49ers and 2021 Buffalo Bills, with subsequently efficient offenses, both won playoff games but fell short of making the big dance.
So, that brings us back to biggest question of the offseason for this franchise, do the Steelers have enough firepower offensively to truly compete for a title? The last time Pittsburgh boasted a top-ten offense in EPA/play? 2018, the final year of Ben Roethlisberger’s prime before his elbow injury. The last time that an Arthur Smith led offense finished in that tier? 2020, behind Derrick Henry’s legendary 2,000-yard campaign. It’s been a while since the powers involved have reached these necessary heights. After adding Russell Wilson, reinforcing the offensive line while trading away Diontae Johnson, it will be fascinating to see how all of the pieces fit.
CAN THIS STEELERS OFFENSE WIN THEM A SUPER BOWL?
From where I sit, it’s difficult to proclaim that the Steelers are “all-in” on making a run in 2024 anyways, but if you’re predicting one, you’re essentially betting on them to take a drastic leap on the offensive side of the ball. Or you’re banking on the Steelers’ defense to become an outlier of sorts in the current layout of the NFL. Either way, we’ll get our answers soon enough.