Steelers Find Themselves In "The Upper Tier" Of Mediocre Teams After 6 Weeks Of The Season

The Pittsburgh Steelers on the back of its defense, special teams, and just enough offense, have clawed out a 3-2 record, which is good enough for to be in the top half of the AFC North. The club has compiled a perfect record in games decided by a touchdown or less, but has struggled mightily when opponents get away from them early. Pittsburgh is hanging around the mix for a playoff spot before they travel to play the Los Angeles Rams, but no one would consider them an upper echelon championship contender with what they have put on tape to this point. 

Brian Batko is one of the Steelers insiders for The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and joined Cale Berger on 93.7 The Fan Sunday afternoon to break down some of the storylines around the team as the bye week wraps up. 

Berger asked about what kind of tier the team belongs in as they have found ways to win against divisional opponents, but struggled against a top team in the San Francisco 49ers. Berger gave them credit for grinding out the wins they have but at the end of the day, they are probably one of the better mediocre teams in the league. Batko agreed. 

"The reason for them being in the upper tier of mediocrity can be chalked up to the way they play," Batko said. "They tend to do well when they take care of the ball and they take care of it pretty well for the most part. We saw that down the stretch last year. And they often find a way to win those close games when TJ and Alex Highsmith tear up opposing offenses and they’ve done that for the most part this season. When they haven’t, the Steelers haven’t had much of a chance." 

The season hasn't gotten off to the best of starts, but has given Head Coach, Mike Tomlin and the rest of the staff plenty of room to work. Largely, the run defense has left a lot to desire. The offense has only scored one touchdown per game and Offensive Coordinator, Matt Canada doesn't seem to have any answers other than to blame execution and talk about a "good vibe" from his players that things will turn around for the unit.

Pittsburgh managed to solve some of its offensive issues in 2022 after the bye week by leaning into a heavy dose of running the football and counting on Kenny Pickett to make plays when they needed him to. It's probably not a perfect formula in today's NFL, but the team needs to find some way to be effective and it was a strategy that got the team rolling after the break in 2022. 

Steelers Are Reminiscent Of 2020 Team To Batko, And That's Not Good

In 2020, the team got off to a crazy 11-0 start which seems nothing like the 3-2 record that Pittsburgh has now, but Batko said the way in which the season has been unfolding feels very similar. Despite winning so many games, the team was hardly blowing the doors off opposing teams other than a 38-7 win over the Cleveland Browns, a 36-10 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals and a 27-3 victory over the hapless Jacksonville Jaguars.

Batko cautioned the team against trying to follow the model that worked for them in 2020, to a point. After reeling off 11 straight wins, Pittsburgh fell to a 4-7 Washington Football Team then lost three of the next four games to fall to the third seed in the AFC behind the Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs. In the playoffs, the team fell behind 28-0 in the first half to the Browns and despite a second-half surge, lost 48-37. 

"No matter how good the Steelers are at that formula I just don’t think you can count on always pulling out those one-possession games," he said. "They’re just not always going to go your way, regression is going to set in at some point like it did at the end of that 2020 season." 

Even if Tomlin wants to count on his star-studded cast of defenders to win games, the offense needs to be better. A big part of not playing in these coin-flip, one-score games moving forward is scoring more points, touchdowns especially, and the Steelers offense in 2023 just hasn't shown it's built to do that yet. 

Do you think Pittsburgh can win with the philosophy Batko outlined? Do you see the similarities to 2020? Comment below!

#SteelerNation