Throughout the 2024 season, one in which the Pittsburgh Steelers have stacked quite a few wins and looked like one of the better teams in football, plenty of questions have remained regarding the team itself and its viability of being a Super Bowl contender.
Most of those questions have centered on the offense under coordinator Arthur Smith, as well as the quarterback position with the combination of Russell Wilson and Justin Fields.
Now, though, coming off a 44-38 shootout win over the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 13, many are starting to come around on the Steelers being a legitimate Super Bowl-contending team, one that is not only among the best in football but might be the best in football.
ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky stated Monday that he could absolutely see the Steelers making the Super Bowl this year. On Tuesday, Orlovsky’s ESPN colleague Chris Canty wouldn’t go that far, but he did all but guarantee a playoff win, something the Steelers haven’t done since the 2016 season.
“I will say this, the playoff drought, the playoff wins drought for the Pittsburgh Steelers, will end this season. It’s over,” Canty said Tuesday on ESPN’s Unsportsmanlike, according to audio via ESPN Radio. “We’re going to get a playoff win this year.”
That should make many within Steeler Nation quite happen.
The biggest criticism of head coach Mike Tomlin over the last decade or so has been his lack of playoff success, and rightly so. While he continues to lead the Steelers to winning seasons, he hasn’t been able to get over the hump in the postseason. Some of that is due to not having a good enough defense near the end of the Ben Roethlisberger era, or not having the quarterback in general to help win playoff games, which includes Roethlisberger in his final season.
Now Tomlin appears to have both. Wilson is playing great football and is coming off his best performance of the season in the shootout win over the Bengals while the Steelers have a top defense in the NFL featuring a number of stars who help take the football away.
Comparing this roster to the ones that Tomlin has taken to the playoffs in the last eight years, this is the best group he has had. That’s very encouraging.
We’ll see how the rest of the season shakes out and what the first playoff matchup for the Steelers could bring, but right now it’s hard not to believe the Steelers will win at least one playoff game this season. After that, who knows what could happen.
