Bringing back an exercise I did ahead of the 2022 Pittsburgh Steelers season. With the team one month away from reporting to training camp, it’s worth taking inventory of the Steelers’ 90-man roster (which, due to an international exemption, is now a 91-man roster soon enough) and offering a framework of the odds that each player makes the 53-man roster.
The final installment in our 2024 preview of the Steelers roster. We’ve gone through each player and assigned their odds to make the Active/Inactive roster for Week 1. Now, we’ll wrap things up with a bow with final thoughts of how the roster looks. First, we’ll link each article we wrote on the ’24 group.
Locks
Near-Locks
Inside-Looking-Out
On The Bubble
Outside-Looking-In
Longshots
What’s interesting is how much more settled in this roster feels compared to 2022. Based on my projections, there are far more players on opposite ends of the roster spectrums, the locks and the longshots, this year than before. Here’s a table of the number of Steelers I put in each bucket, then versus now.
Steelers Roster Chances (2022 vs 2024)
| Category | 2022 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Locks | 27 | 34 |
| Near-Locks | 13 | 8 |
| Inside-Looking-Out | 5 | 4 |
| On The Bubble | 11 | 6 |
| Outside-Looking-In | 13 | 10 |
| Longshots | 21 | 29 |
In 2024, there were seven more locks and eight more long shots compared to 2022. In 2024, we gauge 42 roster spots, or 79.2 percent, are locks or near-locks to make the 53. That leaves just 11 “open” roster spots. In 2022, those numbers were only 40 roster spots, 75.4 percent, with 13 spots feeling truly up for grabs.
This year, we only peg six players truly on the bubble, with their roster chances going either way. In 2022, that number was nearly double at 11. In 2024, we considered only 20 players to be in a range from outside-looking-in to inside-looking-out, an 11 to 75 percent chance of making the team. In 2022, that number sat at 29.
While Pittsburgh’s roster underwent serious changes this offseason, it feels like there’s more clarity at this point. That makes sense given Omar Khan has been in the GM chair for more than two full years compared to 2022, when he was in the role for just a few months.
Roster outlooks are subject to change and injuries are always a Wild Card. But there is much less of a middle to the Steelers’ roster this time around. Hopefully, that means Pittsburgh has a much stronger and competitive roster that will produce better results than it did two years ago.
