The Pittsburgh Steelers rallied last season to finish the season at 9-8, going 7-2 down the stretch after a 2-6 start to the year. In a loaded AFC North, the Steelers are facing an uphill battle again in 2023, with NFL Media analytics expert Cynthia Frelund projecting the team to have another nine-win season, but finish last in the AFC North.
Frelund’s model has Pittsburgh at exactly nine wins, a 1.2-win upgrade from last season, when the model had them projected for 7.8 wins. Obviously, they surpassed that number, but for a while it looked as though they might not even reach seven wins.
Frelund’s model is highest on the Bengals in the AFC North this year, projecting Cincinnati for 11 wins. After that, the Baltimore Ravens come in at 9.9 projected wins, and they’re followed by the Cleveland Browns who edge out the Steelers with 9.3 projected wins.
The general consensus is that Cincinnati and Baltimore will top the division this year, but there’s also been a lot of momentum for the Browns to finish ahead of Pittsburgh. Sure, Cleveland has Deshaun Watson, but he was a shell of himself last season and who knows if he’ll ever return to the player he was before he sat out a year and was suspended for over half of the next year.
The Browns got better, but so did the Steelers, and I’d argue the Steelers improved more than Cleveland, a team they finished ahead of last year. So I’m not quite sure why Cleveland is getting more love from oddsmakers and analysts.
In this case, the gap between Cleveland and Pittsburgh is small, with both teams essentially being projected to go 9-8. Obviously, I have no idea what Frelund’s proprietary model is and how it works, so it may not account for certain things, like the expected development of Kenny Pickett heading into his second season. But nine wins is certainly a reasonable estimate, although Pittsburgh is capable of winning double-digit games with the talent on their roster this season.
Not that it’s any sort of breaking news, but the biggest takeaway from Frelund’s projections is that the AFC North won’t be easy. Every team can beat each other, and it’s going to be a grind to get through the division slate, with a lot of close, tense, football games. I don’t think Pittsburgh is the worst team in the division, nor do I think they’ll finish last, but it just goes to show that this division is hard. Pittsburgh is going to need to bring their A-game in 2023 if they want to make the playoffs.
