Pittsburgh Steelers 2020/21 Season Preview

When the Pittsburgh Steelers walked off the field at M&T Bank Stadium, their season over as their 8-8 finish left them in 7th place in the AFC, the feeling was more hopeful rather than distraught as it was the season prior. Sure they collapsed at the end of the season, losing their final 3 games including one against the New York Jets; but, they had also overachieved and had outdone anybody's expectation of their season. When Ben Roethlisberger went down in the second game of the season with an elbow injury, the complexion of the season changed. 2019 was supposed to be a drama-free season with Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell out of the picture. However, they promptly had to play with inexperienced QBs at the helm. With a top 5 defense in the NFL, led by TJ Watt and recently traded for Minkah Fitzpatrick, the Steelers almost did the unthinkable and made the playoffs. The mood coming off an 8-8 season couldn't be any better right now because with Big Ben back and one of the best defenses in the NFL, hopes are soaring.

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Easy Schedule

The Steelers schedule for next season, especially after their bye week, is incredibly easy. At the moment they have the 2nd lowest strength of schedule, and while that won’t help them win their division as the Ravens have the 1st lowest, it creates a heightened sense of optimism. They start off with three should-win games against the Giants, Broncos, and Texans. If you go down week by week, their toughest stretch is probably from Weeks 4-9 and their bye week comes in Week 8. In that stretch, the Steelers face the Titans, Eagles, Browns, Ravens, and Cowboys. All of those games are winnable, and I’d expect Pittsburgh to win at least three games if not four.

The Steelers' final eight games of the season are incredibly easy. It features matchups against the Bengals (twice), the Jaguars, and Washington. Then they have the Colts, Browns, and Bills in very winnable games. The only matchup I wouldn’t favor them in is their face-off against the Ravens. So the moral of the story is, Pittsburgh is not going to be fighting an uphill battle against their schedule.

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Top 3 Defense

Via: Steelers Wire

Last season the Steelers didn’t finish 8-8 because of some miraculous offensive work from skill players. They did so with one of the best defenses in the NFL. The defense was ranked 5th in opponents yards, tied 1st in opponents yards per play, and 1st in turnovers with 38. It’s pretty safe to say that they were operating as a top 5 unit in the league. In 2020/21, the Steelers are primed to become a top 3 defense in the league with one of the most complete units from top to bottom.

Let’s first look at the Steelers front-7 and their stats from last year. The most important performers were Cam Heyward, Devin Bush, Bud Dupree, and of course TJ Watt. Their only loss from the front-7 was Javon Hargrave, and while losing his 4 sacks might hurt the Steelers, they should be able to make up for it with a fully healthy Stephon Tuitt. You see, Tuitt missed 10 games last season and still finished with 3.5 sacks and 8 QB hits. His return to full fitness is going to be huge for the defense. Sophomore linebacker Devin Bush will be looking to take a huge leap after a successful rookie campaign. He only recorded one sack last season but Bush had 2 interceptions and was a tackling machine in the middle of the field. He’ll need to get some better high impact numbers, but his first year was promising. Cam Heyward finished last season with 9 sacks and 23 QB hits, and while his production may decrease this season he’ll still be the leader of this defensive unit. The most important part of the front-7, and probably the entire defense, will be the LB duo of Bud Dupree and TJ Watt. They finished with a combined 26 sacks and 53 QB Hits. TJ Watt is expected to continue this DPOY pace as he also had 2 INT’s and 8 forced fumbles, proving that he can drop back in coverage and make open-field tackles. However, many aren’t sold on whether Dupree can play up to that level again for a second straight year. There’s no indication that he won’t, but there’s no indication that he will. If he can get double-digit sack numbers and force a couple of turnovers then life could be good for the Steelers, if he doesn’t then others will have to make up for his shortcomings.

The secondary of the Steelers improved immensely with the addition of Minkah Fitzpatrick last season. Even though he missed the opening two games of the season, Minkah still finished with 5 interceptions and one pick 6. Because of his big-play numbers, QB’s had to watch for where he was on the field and that was a big reason why the Steelers only allowed 23 passing TD’s all of last season. Past Fitzpatrick, we see the cornerback duo of Joe Haden and Steven Nelson. There’s a certain yin and yang between these two players. Joe Haden comes up with the big plays, as he had 5 interceptions and only allowed 487 yards all season. Steven Nelson was the lockdown corner who never really had the ball thrown his way. He didn’t allow one touchdown all season and QB’s who threw his way only had a 50% completion percentage. You can attribute this to the other players around him, but I attribute it to his ability to not give an inch to his opponent. Past those three players, the Steelers secondary has some good depth in Mike Hilton, Cam Sutton, and Terrell Edmunds. Hilton and Sutton came up big at times last year and if these three players can just do their job, the secondary is going to be very hard to throw against.

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Running-Back Committee

Via: NFL

For years the Steelers have relied on one back to get the majority of the work done for them on the ground. Franco Harris, Jerome Bettis, Le’Veon Bell. They’ve tried to do this with James Conner over the past few seasons and it hasn’t worked. While Conner has had some great games for the team, he’s been injured to often to be presumed as the main source of yards from the backfield for the team. However, this season the Steelers have a chance to take all the pressure off Conner and play with a true RB committee. The depth at the position is crazy based on talent and skill-set and it makes more sense to have an RBC this season than it doesn’t.

Let’s go from top to bottom on their running-back depth chart. Obviously the lead back on this team would still be James Conner. However, he wouldn’t be getting the 11.6 attempts per game that he had last season. I’d expect that to be lowered all the way down to 8.5 attempts per game. This way he’ll be able to save his body and make big plays as he did against the Chargers last year. He’s just the type of guy who needs to break it open and keep on running until he can’t anymore. Second on the list will be second-year back Benny Snell. Snell average 8.3 attempts per game and had 3.9 yards per attempt. I’d expect his touches to go down to 7.5 a game if James Conner is fully healthy, but not by a whole lot. He’s really good at getting a couple of yards on 3rd and 4th down and will be a great situational back. Then you have Jaylen Samuels, who got 4.7 attempts per game over his 14 appearances. Let’s assume that he is brought up to 5.0, not too much but a slight little bump up. Samuels is really good for not only little dump off runs but for screen passes to tear open a big play. He had 6.5 yards per reception last year on 3.4 receptions per game. The last back of the group will be rookie RB Anthony McFarland Jr. I don’t expect him to get many touches, maybe three rushes a game, but he’ll be a good player to throw at the defense when the team needs to switch up the tactics a little bit. Last year the Steelers ran the ball 24.7 times a game, and I’d expect it to be about the same but with the touches being spread around to more diverse players. This way the team can stay injury-free and have a plethora of options to put the defense in a tough situation.

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Underrated Receiving Core

Via: DK Pittsburgh Sports

Do you know what the worst possible thing for a receiver is? Having to play with not one, but two bad QB’s. If you take the time out of your day to review the depth chart, you can see that there is a plethora of talent from pass-catching players. I’m not only talking about wide receivers but the tight end the Steelers have also added to the depth of players Ben can throw to. Last season may have not looked great at face value for Pittsburgh’s wide receivers, but a little deep digging can prove how well they did.

Nobody on the Steelers reached over 800 yards receiving or 50 yards per game. But that’s okay, you have to factor in the QB play. The three top receivers on the Steelers last year (Diontae Johnson, James Washington, and Juju Smith-Schuster) all had over 11 yards per target. James Washington hit 16.7, proving himself as the main deep threat for the Steelers. Past then we saw tight-end Vance McDonald record 7.2 yards per catch alongside James Conner who had 7.4 yards per catch. When you look at these stats you can see that the receiving core did well to get the most out of a bad situation. James Washington finished top 10 in yards per reception while having a modest 55% catch percentage. Now as a whole the Steelers were 31st in the league in yards per catch and yards per game, however, when you look at the individual receivers there are positives. Just watching the games you could see the promise of Washington and Johnson, and even in an injury-riddled season, Juju was average. And let’s not forget that they’ll be adding Eric Ebron and Chase Claypool into the mix, giving Ben two big targets to throw to. It's hard to estimate their impact, but any sane person would assume it’ll be positive considering the Steelers history with finding the right talent at skill positions. 

It’s clear to see that with a top 20 QB in the league, the receiving core can be a top 15 unit in the league. And while that doesn’t sound amazing, it’s all the Steelers need with a top 3 defense. There were promising moments last season, and with the additions of Ebron and Claypool, the unit is set to get even better this year. Expect an improvement on all fronts.

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Big Ben is Back

Via: NFL

After sitting out the majority of last year with an elbow injury that required surgery, Ben Roethlisberger is going to be back under center for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Now, it would be naive to say that Ben will come back and be a top 10 QB in the league. The thing is though, he doesn’t need to be. I’ve already highlighted how he gets to work with an underrated receiving core ready that is only going to improve, so that’s half of his work done for him. But there’s evidence to suggest that he could at the very least stay in the top half of QB’s in the NFL.

Let’s look at Ben’s last fully healthy season with the Steelers, 2018. Now this year he did get to play with Antonio Brown, but relationships were deteriorating and we all know that Big Ben is trigger happy to his second option. That option was Juju and this season that’ll probably be Diontae Johnson or Eric Ebron. My point in saying this; Ben will throw to everybody on the team. Now, to his stats. In 2018 he threw for 5,129 yards on a 67% completion rate and 34 touchdowns. I won’t gloss over the fact he threw 16 interceptions, but I think the good outweighs the bad here. He was accurate, he had the volume, and he looked really good with the ball in his hands. That year Juju had more yards and yards per reception than Antonio Brown, and 7 players caught over 20 passes. He spreads the ball around, and he did it with precision that year. “But what about his injury, won’t that make his accuracy and volume worse?” Well, it’s been shown, in MLB pitchers, that elbow surgery can make their throws faster. Two factors to understand though:

1- This is after Tommy John surgery, something Big Ben didn’t get.

2- Baseball isn’t the same as football.

These are big factors, which means that we can’t just say that his surgery will help because MLB pitchers with different surgery were made better. However, I think it’s safe to consider that his injury won’t hinder him this year. Elbow surgery of any capacity should make his ability to throw better than before because this wasn’t a freak injury. We’ve seen Ben struggle with his elbow for years, whether he’s been diagnosed with anything or not. So one can make the assumption that his arm will be feeling better now than it has in years with the time off and the surgery. While throwing a football and baseball aren’t the same, let’s not act like they are in two separate worlds. Ben should be able to throw the ball stronger than before, and with a team full of deep threats that could be a good thing. He was throwing more accurately than he ever has before in 2018 at a high volume, and with a completely fixed elbow, I expect him to be solid. I’m not going to convince myself that he can be top 10 once again, but I could see his stats placing him as the 15th best QB in the league. I’ll reiterate myself, that’s all he needs to be.

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Season Prediction Now that we’ve covered the most important things for the Steelers going into next season, it’s time for me to make some predictions for the team. I’ll start off with some statistical type predictions, do one hot take, and then give my record and playoff prediction for the team (spoiler: I think we’re making them).

Juju Smith-Schuster will finish with over 1,000 yards receiving:

With a healthy Big Ben, Juju finally breaks out as the WR1 in the team. While I did mention that Ben spreads the ball around, he’s always had a good connection with Juju. Without a true WR2, I think that he might look the Juju slightly more than he looked to AB. Still though, I think Ben spreads the wealth in a good fashion.

The Steelers defense will record 60 sacks:

With 54 sacks last season, and Stephon Tuitt only healthy for 6 games, I expect to see the defense make a 6 sack jump. Tuitt should make up for the loss of Hargrave and then some. Devin Bush should improve his tally of one sack, and expect TJ Watt to lead another DPOY charge with more than 14.5 sacks this year.

Benny Snell challenges James Conner for the RB1 spot:

While I do expect James Conner to stay healthy if the Steelers do an RBC, Benny Snell should have an amazing opportunity to prove himself. I’m not saying that he’ll overtake Conner as the best back on the team, but he might do enough to create a real battle for the most touches.

The Steelers finish with an 11-5 record and lose in the Divisional Round of the NFL Playoffs:

I shouldn’t have to explain my pick here. The whole article leading up to this was explaining my pick. While I said a lot of good about the Steelers, there is still that concern about a lack of depth on defense and on the offensive line. Their easy schedule should help, especially the second half of the season, but I’m going to be cautious with my pick and say they lose to the Chiefs in the Divisional Round.

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Thanks for reading this in-depth preview of the Steelers 2020/21 NFL Season. I recommend reading the other articles on this website, checking out our YouTube channel and podcast, and following us on Instagram and Twitter (those can be found in the “Other Media” section of our website).

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