Love them or hate them, and sometimes you experience both feelings on the same day, Pro Football Focus is all about the numbers. While they’re most useful at being able to chart and collect data, they’re also in the prediction business. Wednesday, they released their predictive win totals for all 32 teams using their PFF simulation. The results are favorable to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
According to their Ben Brown and the site’s model, they predict the Steelers to win 9.19 games in 2023. We’ll round that down to 9-8 and while it doesn’t look sparkling, it’s one of the better outcomes. Their win projection is eighth-best in football and second in the AFC North, finishing ahead of the Baltimore Ravens and the Cleveland Browns. They only finish behind the Cincinnati Bengals, who have the best win projection of any team at 11.36. It should also be noted these projections are generally on the more conservative side with teams being clumped close together record-wise
Compared to the rest of the AFC North, the Ravens come in third at 8.57 wins while the Browns bring up the rear with 7.96 wins.
There’s no explanations for the Steelers’ win total in the article and it’s all based off their internal model. It probably helps that Pittsburgh has an easier-looking schedule than last season, though looks can be deceiving and every NFL season is unpredictable. More tangibly and reliably, the Steelers have a more stable offense with a clear starter at quarterback, an improved offensive line, and a healthy T.J. Watt to bolster their front seven.
Pittsburgh also has an incredible resiliency to win when the odds are stacked against them. The 2019 and 2022 seasons are perfect examples, finishing 8-8 without Ben Roethlisberger in 2019 and 9-8 last season despite a terrible 2-6 start. It’s doubtful that’s built into the model but looking outside of it, the Steelers can win nine games under last year’s circumstances, they’re capable of doing it again. And hopefully building upon it.
If we pretended PFF’s rankings were exactly how the year would go, Pittsburgh would capture the #5 seed behind the four division winners and would take on the Jacksonville Jaguars during Wild Card weekend. It’d be a rematch of their 2017 matchup, an upset victory in the Jags’ favor, though the two teams would look vastly different today. Jacksonville is an entirely new franchise with a different GM, head coach, and 1st-round franchise quarterback. For Pittsburgh, they have a new face of the franchise as well in Kenny Pickett and would be a fun matchup between two recent first-round picks.
In PFF’s model, the Bengals edged out the Kansas City Chiefs for the best record. The Philadelphia Eagles are projected to have the NFC’s best record with 10.37 wins. The Houston Texans are projected to have the league’s worst record at 5.93 wins.
