Mathematically, the strength of the chart, the Pittsburgh Steelers have the 12th toughest chart in 2022. But when you look at exactly how the chart is set out, which is already known after the chart was published on Thursday, Nick Schuck of NFL.com believes that this is the most challenging thing in football.
In a recent article for the site, Shook cited Steelers’ schedule as the most difficult in the NFL, taking into account the opponent and the specific order of the games. Explaining why, he wrote:
“Almost every game in the first half of the season seems to be a significant hurdle for Pittsburgh, a franchise that is making its first steps into the era after Ben Rotlisberger, and five of the first eight races come from Heinz Field. Things don’t get much easier after goodbye in week 9, as the Steelers are on their way to four of their last seven games. We still don’t know who Roethlisberger’s successor will be, with Mitchell Trubyschi and rookie Kenny Pickett ready to fight for the job, but the Steelers will have to hope to get anyone in, as their starting call-up is doing well enough with the scarecrow. an early plan to position them on a strong path to the final, which includes meetings with Las Vegas, Baltimore and Cleveland to close the season. “
Certainly the schedule does not offer an “easier” part of the schedule and is competitive, albeit balanced, everywhere. Pittsburgh played with AFC North in two of its first three weeks for the first time since 2014, opening in Cincinnati in the first week, followed by Thursday night against Cleveland in week 3. Both games are on the way. Between them is a home game against the New England Patriots, which should be in the Wild Card mix this season.
Weeks 5-8 see the team face the Bills, Bucs, Dolphins and Eagles, all games in which the Steelers will be outsiders or slight favorites. Their farewell week is really in good time, right in the middle of the season, but coming out of it, they host Saints, Bengals and play a game on Monday night against Indianapolis.
Pittsburgh will end the year as it began two of its last three games against AFC North – Week 17 against the Ravens and Week 18 against the Browns with a Christmas Eve game to host the Raiders in Week 16.
Of course, there are much easier schedules, but Pittsburgh has looked worse in recent years. The biggest problems are internal to the team. Who will be the quarterback, how the o-line and as an extension, the running game will improve and whether the Steelers can drastically improve their historically poor defense from a year ago. They’ll need a lot of touchdowns from Najee Harris this year, along with a front seven that doesn’t open half-truck-sized holes for the enemy runner on a weekly basis.
To have a legitimate chance for the playoffs, Pittsburgh’s goal this year must be ten wins. Although they entered the playoffs last year with a strange 9-7-1 record, they and the Philadelphia Eagles were the only two teams to enter the post-season with just nine wins. In the rest of the AFC, New England and Las Vegas came in with ten, while in the NFC, Arizona needed 11 wins, while the 49ers scored double-digits with ten. For Pittsburgh, that means sitting 5-3 before goodbye weeks and walking 5-4 the rest of the way, putting them at 10-7. Or if they are at 0.500 per bye, they will have to go 6-3 down the stretch.
Of course, predicting the schedule is just divination and a lot will change from now until the Steelers actually go out on the field against these opponents. Like most things at this time of year, Schook’s column is just off-season fodder.
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