Analyst Thinks Dominant Defense Is Steelers’ Only Chance To Have Winning Record 

Death, taxes, and analysts saying, “This will be the year the Pittsburgh Steelers finish under .500!” And what do you know, it’s happened again.

The 33rd Team’s Dan Pizzuta wrote an article deciding if each team would finish over or under what their win line is for the year. For the Steelers, their line is 8.5 and Pizzuta took the under, meaning he thinks it will be hard for the Steelers to finish at least .500.

“The Pittsburgh Steelers have two flawed quarterbacks who don’t see the middle of the field well and finished 22nd and 23rd in EPA per play last season,” Pizzuta wrote. “George Pickens is the only plus receiver to go along with Pat Frieimuth [sic], so there won’t be a lot of help in the receiving room. The defense would have to do a lot of heavy lifting. Pittsburgh finished eighth in EPA per play on defense last season but might have to push it to a top-five unit for this to go over.”

In 2024, offense is the name of the game and without a good quarterback it’s hard to contend. But, the question is can they win more than 8.5 games, and if the last five years has shown anything, it’s certainly possible. Under Mike Tomlin, Pittsburgh has managed to win at least eight games despite starting a plethora of bad quarterbacks.

While Pizzuta is right that the Steelers wide receiver room is poor, it also hasn’t been good since 2018. It’s not much worse than the 2019 receiving room which had JuJu Smith-Schuster (who played only 12 games) and rookie Diontae Johnson. And even though Russell Wilson and Justin Fields aren’t world beaters, they are certainly better than Devlin Hodges and second year Mason Rudolph, a boost compared to a 2019 team that still managed to go .500, though they did finish under the 8.5-win line.

Entering the season, Pittsburgh’s defense is healthy and is sporting the best linebacker corps since the days of Ryan Shazier. After years of the inside linebackers being the Achilles Heel of the defense, this should finally be a leading unit and potentially elite group.

Given the Steelers’ difficult schedule, it isn’t crazy to take the under on 8.5 wins. Pittsburgh has to stack wins early as the back half of their schedule consists of the entire AFC North, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Philadelphia Eagles (in Philadelphia, where they haven’t won since 1965).

While Pittsburgh technically could finish under 8.5 and still avoid a losing record, going 8-8-1, it’s more likely is that they finish with a 9-8 or 10-7 record. The 2024 Steelers are not that bad on paper. The problem is a brutal schedule. But things change throughout the season. What seems difficult now, may not seem so difficult come November.