After 12 games, Mike Tomlin has already clinched another non-losing season. But the focus for the Pittsburgh Steelers this year has been on much more than a winning season. It has been on getting over the hump and actually winning in the playoffs.
According to ESPN analytics and its Football Power Index, the Steelers are in a great position to get over the hump and win a playoff game for the first time since 2016. In fact, it gives them a a 21.2-percent chance at making the AFC Championship Game and a 9.1-percent chance at making the Super Bowl.
Why is this significant? Prior to the season, ESPN analytics gave the Steelers a 30.9-percent chance at ending up with a top-10 draft pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. This wasn’t unique to ESPN’s model, either. Several analytics platforms had the Steelers having their first losing season under Tomlin. Not a single one of them saw the Steelers being within reasonable striking distance of the AFC’s No. 1 seed with five games left to play.
They are a virtual lock for the playoffs at the moment with a 99.5-percent chance of making the tournament, and they have finally flipped the Baltimore Ravens with a 70.2 percent chance of winning the AFC North. The Steelers only need two more wins, with one of those being against the Ravens, and the rest of the results won’t matter for the division title.
In the overall FPI, the Steelers are ranked ninth in the NFL with a 1.9 score, but in terms of per-play efficiency they are ranked sixth. That comes with the No. 5 defense, No. 1 special teams, and No. 16 offense. With the arrow pointing up for the offense, the Steelers figure to be a very difficult team to beat in the playoffs.
Will they make the conference championship game? Who knows, but the analytics sure seem to think they will get a playoff win. After what Russell Wilson and the offense did on Sunday against the Cincinnati Bengals, with 37 points and over 500 yards of total offense, the Super Bowl doesn’t seem like a pipe dream anymore.
