The Pittsburgh Steelers have built up a lot of belief throughout the season, changing the minds of many. It was only a few months ago before the season began that the majority of outlets were predicting a nine-win season at best for the Steelers, and here they are with 10 wins and four weeks still to go. That being said, their schedule didn’t end up being as difficult as initially thought. And they still don’t have a top-tier signature win.
Their road trip to the other side of the state to play the Philadelphia Eagles could end up providing that signature win that propels them from being a borderline Super Bowl team to a true, top contender.
“It’s not their fault who’s on their schedule. You take ’em one at a time, you beat ’em,” Craig Carton said via Breakfast Ball on FS1. “They’re doing something unthinkable based on what we thought going into the year, which is they’re gonna win the division. This game sets them up to be looked at a lot differently than people currently look at them.”
Looking through the various playoff scenarios and the Steelers’ chances of getting the AFC’s No. 1 seed, it really stuck out how easy the Steelers’ schedule ended up being. These last four games won’t be easy, but their strength of victory so far is not all that impressive. The opponents they’ve beaten have a combined win percentage of .406 while the opponents they have played have a combined win percentage of .398, per Joe Ferreira on X.
NFL Playoffs Update:
With three more playoff eliminations this week (NYJ, CLE, TEN), we now have 7 total teams eliminated with 4 weeks to play (NYG in NFC; LV, NE, JAX, NYJ, CLE, TEN in AFC).
That leaves 25 teams in Super Bowl contention with 4 weeks to play which is the fewest… pic.twitter.com/Yj9C4YhqJG
— Joe Ferreira (@JoeNFL) December 9, 2024
The Steelers aren’t exactly battle tested. They are 4-0 against opponents with winning records, but none of those teams are leaders of their division. They will now face the NFC East-leading Eagles and the AFC West-leading Kansas City Chiefs over the next three games.
Not many are expecting the Steelers to win this game in Philadelphia, ending a nearly 60-year drought of winning in that city. But if they do, the media is going to get very high on the Steelers’ potential.
“If you beat the Eagles, you’ve announced yourselves as a team that’s now gotta be taken seriously by us,” Carton said. “No one’s giving them the love they deserve. I don’t care if they win this game 6-3. If they beat the Eagles, all of a sudden we’re announcing ourselves to the world. You better not sleep on us, ’cause we can win it all.”
While expectations are that the Eagles will win, I still think the flipside might also be true to a certain degree. If the Steelers come up short in their biggest test so far this season, there will be a lot of people writing them off as a playoff pretender who got by on an easy schedule. It’s pretty interesting to reflect on this schedule as easy after a lot of the preseason chatter about it being the “hardest” schedule in the league.
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