The Pittsburgh Steelers are in a tough spot. They urgently want to win a playoff game for the first time since 2016. They felt like the quarterbacks they had last season weren’t up to the task. So they brought in Russell Wilson and Justin Fields. They officially named Wilson as the Week 1 starter on Wednesday. Their hope is that he will recapture his form with the Seattle Seahawks and lead them to postseason wins.
There are two main problems with that. One, Wilson is going to turn 36 during the 2024 NFL season and isn’t the same athletically as he used to be. That could be a problem if the Steelers don’t get their offensive line playing well. Second, the Steelers are dealing with a schedule that is generally summed up as brutal. They don’t play an AFC North rival until Week 11 and have to deal with a Wednesday game on Christmas day in the midst of all that.
But the flipside to the brutal schedule is this: If the Steelers make the playoffs despite it that, they just might be in the best position to win a playoff game in years.
“The way this schedule plays out in the regular season, the way Mike Tomlin makes the team better as the season unfolds, if they can win enough games to qualify after that seven-game gauntlet to end the regular season, between Russell Wilson and Justin Fields, whoever’s starting, then they’re gonna be in a better position than they’ve been in years,” Mike Florio said on Thursday’s episode of Pro Football Talk. “Those guys are better than what the Steelers had last year. Kenny Pickett, Mitch Trubisky, Mason Rudolph. Wilson and Fields are a significant upgrade over that trio of options the Steelers had and they still got to the playoffs.”
From Week 11 to Week 18, the Steelers will play four teams that made the playoffs in 2023. They’ll play two of those teams (the Baltimore Ravens and the Cleveland Browns) twice. The stretch includes a Sunday away game versus the Philadelphia Eagles followed by a Saturday away game versus the Ravens and capped by a Wednesday home game against the Kansas City Chiefs.
The only non-playoff team in 2023 the Steelers play during that stretch is the Cincinnati Bengals. And they could very well have QB Joe Burrow still healthy at that point, which did not happen last season. It’s an incredibly tough stretch of games.
It’s going to be one of Tomlin’s hardest tasks to date. That’s a big reason why the Steelers focused on improving the inside linebacker and safety positions along with shoring up the offensive line. Tomlin and the Steelers realize they don’t have a quarterback on the level of Patrick Mahomes or Josh Allen who can single-handedly win games. So they’re taking a page out of Wilson’s earlier years with the Seahawks. Build a darn good defense, have a really good running game, and take pressure off the quarterback.
If Tomlin can guide his team through that seven-game stretch to a playoff berth, Florio is right. This will be the best chance the Steelers have at winning a playoff game in recent memory. And that’s regardless of which quarterback is playing at that point.
Maybe it will be the veteran Wilson, who brings that postseason experience. Or maybe the Steelers will turn to Fields at some point due to his athletic playmaking ability. But if either quarterback plays well enough to get the Steelers through the end of the season and into the playoffs, they’ll be ready for postseason play.
Because playoff football in Pittsburgh starts in November this year.
You can watch the entire discussion between Florio and Charean Williams regarding Wilson and the Steelers below.
