Steelers already being dismissed as competitors with projected win total

ESPN recently released their projected win totals for each NFL team in 2022. Here’s why the Steelers are already being disregarded this year.

We’ve seen this song and dance before. Prior to NFL teams doing so much as kicking off OTAs, the Pittsburgh Steelers are already being dismissed as realistic competitors for the upcoming 2022 season.

This is far from the first time this has happened. To begin the 2021 season, the Steelers had the lowest odds to win the AFC North. While that honor eventually went to the Cincinnati Bengals (who made it to the Super Bowl last season), the Steelers were still a 9-7-1 Wild Card team while the Browns and Ravens watched from home.

Recently, a panel of writers at ESPN set their projected win total for each team following the 2022 NFL Draft. They projected the Steelers over/under at just 7.5 wins this year. Here’s what ESPN’s Brooke Pryor had to say:

"Over/under: 7.5Prediction: For the Steelers to hit the over, they’ll need the quarterback situation to be settled — and quickly. Whether that’s Kenny Pickett starting from the beginning and deftly adjusting to the NFL learning curve or Mitch Trubisky commanding Matt Canada’s offense, whoever takes over the starting job will have to hit the ground running, literally."

I don’t disagree that the Steelers have an uphill battle, but I find it interesting that they are earning such little respect — especially when you consider that their roster is improved on paper from a year ago.

Throughout the 2022 offseason, the Steelers were able to add players who are sure to be contributors like WR George Pickens, OG James Daniels, LB Myles Jack, CB Levi Wallace, and WR Calvin Austin. This isn’t even taking into consideration the fact that Kenny Pickett could earn the starting QB job at some point this year.

Their losses should all be relatively significant as well. The Steelers said goodbye to a 39-year-old Ben Roethlisberger, a struggling Joe Haden, and a remarkably inefficient JuJu Smith-Schuster. Other losses like Trai Turner and Joe Schobert could prove to be addition by subtraction.

How many wins will the Steelers earn in 2022?

Most of my readers know that I’m a realist and I try to assess the game as objectively as possible. While I think that it’s possible the Steelers could earn under 7.5 wins this year, I would have set the win total slightly higher for a number of reasons.

For starters, Mike Tomlin continues to be underestimated. Since joining the team all the way back in 2007, he continues to hit the over on his projected win totals despite the national media counting him out. He also has yet to have a season below a .500 record.

While their division should be tougher this year — particularly with Deshaun Watson in the AFC North — there is plenty of reason to believe they can hit the over on 7.5 wins. I recently did my game-by-game predictions following the 2022 NFL schedule release. Though I was pretty tough on them, I had Pittsburgh going over this projected win total.

As always, there are going to be some growing pains with their latest roster turnover, but I don’t think that Ben Roethlisberger played very well at all in 2021, and the rest of their offense should be improved. ESPN might already be counting out the Steelers, but they have proven us wrong before.