The prospects for the Pittsburgh Steelers having a successful 2021 season aren’t looking particularly good right now if you base it solely on the betting odds. Not only did the Steelers open this week with middle-of-the-pack odds regarding possibly winning Super Bowl LVI, but they also aren’t even remotely fabvitrites to win their own division, AFC North.
According to BetOnline.ag, the Steelers are currently 13/5 odds to win the AFC North division in 2021. Both the Baltimore Ravens (5/4) and Cleveland Browns (2/1) have shorter odds than they do while the Cincinnati Bengals are the longest shots at 18/1. BetOnline.ag also has the Steelers set as the 15th best team in the NFL to win the Super Bowl at 28/1.
Are these odds surprising? Not really and especially not at this point of the offseason and especially with the future of several Steelers key unrestricted free agents currently up in the air. The future of Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is also currently up in the air as well, but we should have some clarity on him within the next few weeks, if not sooner.
The Steelers have the toughest NFL 2021 schedule based on last year’s final win-loss records of all 32 teams and that’s likely heavy on the mind of the betting public right now as well and thus keeping the Steelers odds of winning their division long and third-best out of the four teams.
It will be interesting to see how the Steelers Super Bowl odds and division odds move in the next few weeks and especially if Roethlisberger returns and the team’s able to re-sign a key free agent or two in wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster and cornerback Cameron Sutton. The chances of those two players being re-signed likely depends a lot on what the 2021 NFL salary cap number comes in at.
