Leading up to the start of the 2025 season, expectations were seemingly low for the Pittsburgh Steelers, at least externally when it came to a lot of the talking heads.
Despite a busy offseason that saw a number of roster changes and big swings by the front office, the Steelers were viewed as too old, betting on a quarterback that should have retired, not having enough at wide receiver, and more.
Yet here the Steelers stand at 3-1 entering the Week 5 bye week coming off a strong win over the Minnesota Vikings in Dublin, Ireland. In the process, they’ve seen the rest of the AFC North collapse and struggle with injuries. They’ll have a nice path forward coming out of the bye week with matchups against the Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals in Week 6 and 7.
How things are looking around the division, with the Baltimore Ravens dealing with injuries and the Browns and Bengals looking like they’re on life support early in the season, ESPN’s Chris Canty expects division dominance from the Steelers.
Appearing on ESPN Radio’s UnSportsmanlike Tuesday, he believes the Steelers should roll through the division. He even thinks an appearance in the AFC Championship Game should not be out of the question. All that after Canty was so low on the Steelers throughout the offseason.
“They should be 6-0 in the AFC North. Think about it, coming into this year, you would’ve given them four losses with the two games against the Bengals, the two games against the Ravens based on how those two teams looked off of the offseasons that they had. Now I’m willing to concede those games to the Pittsburgh Steelers,” Canty said of the Steelers within the division, according to audio via ESPN Radio. “I get that they haven’t played a division opponent yet, but it’s setting up for them to dominate division competition, which never happens in the AFC North. But it should happen this year. That is my expectation for the Pittsburgh Steelers right now, based on everything that’s happening with the Ravens, based on how the Bengals…based on the state of affairs with the Cleveland Browns.
“There is no excuse for Mike Tomlin and that team not to win the division. And if they win that division, then there are going to be expectations once they get into the tournament.”
We’re just four weeks into the season, the Steelers haven’t played a single divisional game just yet, and already there’s talks about how they better go 6-0 in the division. That from the same guy who all offseason said they’d be dreadful and that this would be the end of the Mike Tomlin era because the Aaron Rodgers experiment was going to go sideways.
Sure, the Ravens look downright bad, especially defensively. They’re decimated by injuries, too. Same with the Bengals, who look like the worst team in the NFL without Joe Burrow and will be without him for much of the season, too.
The Browns remain, well, the Browns. Good defense, but the offense largely has no shot.
So, things are setting up nicely for the Steelers. It will be tough to play two division games in a four-day stretch coming out of the bye week with the Week 6 Sunday matchup with the Browns at 1 p.m. at Acrisure Stadium, and then a Thursday Night Football trip to Cincinnati in Week 7.
But the Steelers are rolling right now on both sides of the football, and the bye week presents another opportunity to reset and correct some things.Â
If they can start stacking wins, there’s no telling where this season could go. Canty thinks there’s no excuses for division dominance, but also a trip to the AFC Championship Game.
“That is wild to think that they’re gonna run away with the division and they’re likely going to host one playoff game and if they win that playoff game, they’ll host another one,” Canty added. “That is insane to think that there could be a path for the Pittsburgh Steelers to get to the conference championship game.”
It’s way too early to think about that. There’s still 12 weeks left in the regular season. But things are setting up nicely for the Black and Gold. They have to take advantage of it.
