The National Football League has created various stats to track success rates of teams and individual players. One of those stats is Defense-adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA). DVOA was created by Aaron Schatz of Football Outsiders and calculates a team’s success based on the down and distance of each play, then calculates how much more or less successful each team is compared to the league average.
Schatz notes that DVOA projections are different than the hard data he gets during the season as his projections are a forecast of what could happen this season, with offense, defense, and special teams’ DVOA all projected separately using a system based on looking at trends. In his model, Schatz had Pittsburgh finishing 11th in the league with a total DVOA of 5.9 percent, projecting that with 9.9 mean wins and a playoff percentage of 54.5.
Prior to publishing his 2023 DVOA projections, Schatz noted that Pittsburgh rose up his ranks due to its most recent signing of DB Desmond King II to boost its defense.
“The other changes in our projections are primarily due to small changes in projected starting lineups,” Schatz wrote. “The two biggest positive moves belong to the Rams and Steelers, each move being related to signing a veteran defensive back (John Johnson for the Rams and Desmond King for the Steelers).”
Based on Schatz’s projections, Pittsburgh is in position to make the playoffs and be a borderline top-10 team in the league. Pittsburgh’s offense ranks 12th in DVOA while the defense ranks 11th in DVOA in comparison to the rest of the league. This represents a big improvement for the offense, which finished 26th in the league last season in total points scored while the defense stayed almost the same, ranking 10th in total points allowed in 2022, according to Pro Football Reference.
These rankings in DVOA by Schatz can be seen as a fairly accurate projection of what media analysts and fans are currently projecting Pittsburgh to do in 2023. They likely aren’t becoming a Super Bowl contender after finishing 9-8 and missing the playoffs last season, but they have noticeably improved and are ready to make a run to the postseason and hopefully secure their first playoff win since 2016.
No one would be complaining if Pittsburgh finished with a top-12 offense, although one would expect Pittsburgh to boast a defense that could be closer to a top-five ranking if everyone stays healthy. Either way, the projections suggest that Pittsburgh could be in for a strong 2023 campaign, now needing to match those projections with actual production on the field come Week One.
