Through two weeks of the 2024 season, the Pittsburgh Steelers find themselves at 2-0, having allowed just 16 total points while taking the football away five times defensively.
The Steelers’ formula of leaning on a star-studded defense to take the football away and create short fields, limit killer mistakes offensively, run the football and win low-scoring games has worked so far. Again, they’re 2-0 and won both games on the road to open a season for the first time since 1999.
That matters.
Yet, in the bigger picture, that 2-0 record, which ESPN’s Brooke Pryor recently called a mirage, is in question because of how the Steelers are winning games and have looked doing so.
For FS1’s David Helman and Carmen Vitali, the Steelers are decidedly “not real” as a legitimate 2-0 team right now, based simply on how they are winning and how unsustainable the pair believe theie style of play is.
“Do I think that they still have a shot to make the playoffs? Of course I do. They’ve never had a losing season under Mike Tomlin. They’ve always been this defense first, run-first team, and that continued. But they scored one offensive touchdown in the first two weeks of the season,” Vitali said of the Steelers, according to video via the NFL on FOX YouTube page. “That puts them in company with the Chicago Bears among other teams. The only difference, really, between the Steelers and the Bears right now is a couple of turnovers. Caleb Williams had a couple interceptions. Justin Fields did not. But you have to think that those are going to come at some point. So you have a decent enough run game. You got a defense that is suffocating opponents, so you don’t even have to score that many points.
“But that has to catch up to them at some point. And even if they do make the playoffs, I don’t expect them to be actual contenders.”
So, despite going on the road twice in the first two weeks, winning games in hostile environments and doing so all while a new team continues to jell, the Steelers aren’t winning with enough style for them to be taken seriously, almost as if this is college football back in the BCS era where style points mattered.
The fact of the matter is, the Steelers are 2-0. Period. They’ve won while not turning the ball over and taking the football away at a high rate defensively. A defense, mind you, that is heavily invested in financially and is the backbone of the Steelers and how they want to play under Tomlin.
Despite playing that way analysts just can’t take the Steelers seriously as a solid team that can make the playoffs.
“I don’t think the Steelers are for real. I think they’re not real. But that’s mainly about the standard that you hold a team like Pittsburgh to. You know, six Super Bowl trophies. The Pittsburgh Steelers are absolutely good enough to have a winning record and sneak into the playoffs. ’cause that’s what they’ve been doing,” Helman added. “And I’ll go as far as to say this, T.J. Watt, Alex Highsmith, Cam Heyward, Minkah Fitzpatrick, Patrick Queen, that makes them worth watching alone. I can’t wait to tune in every week and see how their defense beats the hell out of who they’re playing. But do I see the Steelers being substantially better than the additions we’ve seen here over the last three years? No, I do not.
“So if being a wild card is good enough for you, I guess you could call them real. But this is the Pittsburgh Steelers, and by that standard I’m saying not real.”
So, if the only standard through two weeks is that for a team to be real, they should be a Super Bowl contender, then you can count out the Steelers based on Helman’s reasoning.
It’s far too early in the season to be attempting to determine Super Bowl contenders. They’ve played two games. It’s still largely the preseason across the NFL as more and more team sit their starters in the preseason to avoid injuries in meaningless games.
Knowing that, what’s happening right now doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. The Steelers — like all teams across the board — are trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t work for their team. To Pittsburgh’s credit, it is doing that while winning, which is something not every team can say.
Sure, it doesn’t look pretty, and it might be a bit unsustainable scoring 15.5 points per game in an offense-driven league. But the Steelers are doing the only thing that matters in the end: winning games. That’s what’s real.
