The Steelers are now back at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex, facing down a long regular season that looks a lot more promising given how things have gone leading up to it. Finishing just above .500 last year, they anticipate being able to compete with any team in the league this season with second-year QB Kenny Pickett leading the way.
They’ve done a great deal to address what they identified as their shortcomings during the offseason, which included addressing the offensive and defensive lines as well as the secondary and the inside linebacker room, which is nearly entirely different from last year. The results have been positive so far.
Even well into the regular season and beyond, there are going to be plenty of questions that need answered. When will the core rookies get to play, or even start? Is the depth sufficient where they upgraded? Can they stand toe-to-toe with the Bengals and the other top teams in the league? We’ll try to frame the conversation in relevant ways as long as you stick with us throughout the season, as we have for many years.
Question: Is this preseason run too good to be true?
The Steelers just completed their best preseason run that I can recall, at least off the top of my head, capping it off with a 24-0 shutout over the Atlanta Falcons. Granted, a couple of those games included Pittsburgh playing higher-string players, especially last night’s dominant performance, but as they so, you can only beat the man in front of you.
Let’s get one thing out of the way: the most obvious answer is yes. If you’re taking the question strictly literally and expecting the Steelers to reasonably comfortably win almost every game this year, then obviously the performance of the preseason is going to be too good to be true.
QB Kenny Pickett also isn’t going to be very nearly flawless, posting a perfect passer rating over five drives, all of which ended in touchdowns. That’s not going to happen. We all know that’s not going to happen.
But let’s talk about the question generally. The Steelers really looked quite good, in many different ways, individually and collectively. What can we take away from that to draw conclusions about this team going into the regular season?
Taking the most reasonable assessment possible, can we reasonably expect the Steelers to have perhaps a top-10 offense, indications of which they have shown for the past few weeks? Is their running game good enough? Their passing game? Their offensive line?
Will WR Calvin Austin III be a potentially dangerous return man? Will the pressure off the edge get back to where it was before T.J. Watt’s injury? Will rookies like Keeanu Benton and Nick Herbig bolster the defense as supplementary wreckers?
This looked like a team that could compete for the division title and make a postseason run. Let’s put it that way. If we use that as our standard for extrapolating preseason results to the regular season and beyond…was it too good to be true?
