The Pittsburgh Steelers spent the offseason revamping many facets of their offense after having one of the worst attacks in the league over the past few seasons. The quarterback room, the offensive line, the wide receiver group and even the offensive system with new OC Arthur Smith will all look very different in 2024. Different doesn’t always mean better, but in the case of the Steelers, it would be difficult to perform much worse on that side of the ball.
Craig Carton named the Steelers as one of the five teams most likely to fail to live up to the hype in 2024, and former Steelers WR Plaxico Burress chimed in with the critical deciding factor on whether or not they have success.
“Let’s be honest, the success of the Pittsburgh Steelers hangs on the player at quarterback,” Burress said on Monday’s episode of The Carton Show on FS1.
It is a somewhat obvious statement to make, but I’m not sure if I entirely agree with Burress. If we are talking Super Bowl aspirations, then yes, the Steelers will need solid-to-great play out of Russell Wilson or Justin Fields. But the Steelers have won a lot of games and even made it to the playoffs with one of the worst QB situations in the league last year. This team was built to win games without having a successful quarterback, relying on the run game and the defense to do the heavy lifting.
Both of those areas that were already strengths in 2023 should be even better this season. The run game has two new high draft picks to run behind, and we won’t have to wait until the midway point of the season for Jaylen Warren to start seeing his fair share of carries and touches. When he got more involved was when the run game started to take off in 2023, and he is now established enough to provide that from the start of the season.
The defense should also be much improved just by way of being healthy. More injuries will occur like they always do, but they shouldn’t be forced to start seven different ILBs and six different safeties again. The Steelers had to simplify their defense last season to compensate, so the personnel and the scheme were affected. Even when healthy, the Steelers didn’t get a great season out of Minkah Fitzpatrick who has been nothing but stellar since joining the team. He should be back in business, and the additions of DeShon Elliott, Patrick Queen and Payton Wilson should all provide a lift to the defense.
Even Cameron Heyward being back to good health should lift the defense overall. A top-seven scoring defense from last year might even have a chance to improve on that mark.
And then look at what the Steelers were dealing with at quarterback. Kenny Pickett was 27th in ANY/A and managed just 6 touchdown passes. It would be almost impossible for the Steelers’ QB tandem to have a worse performance than that. Even if Russell Wilson matches his career low, you are talking about an additional 1,000 passing yards and an additional 10 touchdown passes of production over Pickett.
Even if the QB play is a small upgrade over 2023, the Steelers should still be plenty competitive. And I think it has a chance to be much more than a small upgrade.
So yes, it is probably fair to say every team’s success hangs on the player at quarterback like Burress said, but if there’s a team set up to succeed without top-10 quarterback play, it just might be the Steelers.
