Remaining schedule

I'm sure being 5-0 has some of us rethinking our expectation for the season. Looking at the prediction poll a lot picked high win totals. Kudos to them!

This is a good football team. Barring serious injury I'm thinking they split with the Ravens, split Browns sweep Bengals (better do it now cause that is going to change) Finish off the NFC Least. We can all agree the Steelers have "one of those games in them" so I can see a loss to Jags. 12-4? 11-5?

 

Cryboys @ Dallas could get hairy. The Jags too, they always play us well.

 

Sad but true.

12-4 looks possible

 

We needed Bush to counter Lamar. Ben better show up early.

 

Our backups maybe can do something

 

Based on what I have watched over the first 5 weeks, my expectations are higher than 12-4. It just feels different this year. The defense is playing out of its mind. Ben is spreading the ball around all over the field. The offense has too many weapons right now. Opposing teams can not focus on taking away just one player.

I know 16-0 is almost impossible. But I think a record of 15-1 or 14-2 is within reach.

 

Bro..... you got to get off the Joe Burrows bandwagon. It's still the Bengals.

And you think we will lose our next game to the Browns?

I think I underestimated the Steelers with my 11 and 5 prediction

 

I predicted 14-2 at the beginning of season, ( i think) alot of experts and fans picked us at 7-9 , ... If this team doesnt get complacent and stays healthy i can see this team going 14-2 and up

 

I do not down play anything. A lot can happen between now and Jan 3 when we play the browns. I would expect a win, but they were without many starters, and Chubb will be back. If this D plays like it did today I would still see the Steelera as the fave, but what if it is a meaningless game and we sit vets to rest, and.or the Browns are playing for a p/o spot? I think we can go 12-4 and even better, despite the Bush injury I think the O and D are still ascending and have not even hit their peak yet. Steil a long season and 3 road games (though relatively short trips) is going to test them.

 

I don’t see too many losses on the remaining schedule. Obviously the next 3 weeks are gonna be tough on the road at Tenn, Balt, and Dallas but I don’t think the Steelers will do worse then 2-1 in that stretch. Then you look at the remaining schedule 2 games with the Bengals, At Jacksonville, the Ravens at home Thanksgiving night, Washington at home, at Buffalo, Colts at home and finishing up at Cleveland. There isn’t a lot of losses on that schedule. I think this team finishes at worst 12-4 maybe even 13-3 or possibly better. We will find out a lot in the next 3 games just how good this Steelers team really is.

 

Dalton revenge tour haha

 

Anyone call for a wet blanket?

5-0 means we're undefeated. But that's all it means. Our season starts next week. The Titans will give us a legitimate test, a test that we haven't had yet this season.

Want me to get excited about the legitimacy of this team? Win next week. Blow them out, squeak by, I don't care. A "W" next week means more to me than all 5 we currently have.

We could win that game to go 3-3 and I would be just as happy as going 6-0. The record doesn't mean as much early in the season. And it means even less when you aren't beating quality competition.

The difference this season, however, is that we're winning games we would have lost in the past. That's a big deal. Now we just have to win the games we might not win on paper.

 

I think the Steelers will go into that game in Tennessee next week with a little extra incentive and a bit of a chip on their shoulder. They are still pretty pissed off that the Titans forced them to have to rearrange their schedule around and costs them their bye week by the whole Corona thing on their team. Tomlin will play it down but rest assure it will motivate the Steelers and they will come into the game with more of an edge because of it.

 

I like your sentiments about winning versus good teams. But disagree about its importance in October. There’s a chance we don’t see the Titans in the playoffs. They may lose to another one of the AFC powerhouses. Getting to the playoffs is of utmost importance, then seeding. So, falling to 5-1 is preferable to winning to be 3-3. But, while we’re at it, let’s win to get to 6-0.

 

If we are still undefeated after playing the Ratbirds, then yeah, I`m right there with you on that.

 

Losing Bush puts us in the wildcard game imo. I hope I'm wrong.

 

Maybe I should wait until after the Ravens game. Good catch bigbunch.

 

coudnt help myself , lol

 

I think you misunderstood me. When I said, "We could win that game to go 3-3 and I would be just as happy as going 6-0" I meant that the accomplishment of winning that game was more important to me than our record. Being able to win that game means we are able to win big games against quality opponents. If we can't do that, seeding doesn't matter.

I believe in "any given Sunday," but I do not want to be a team that it applies to.

 

Bush injury could be crushing we have 0 depth at ILB

 

It could. The loss of Bush certainly puts a damper on what should have been a great day. The Steelers were fine without him today, but they already had control of that game when Bush went down. Somebody already mentioned that Bush was going to be a big part of trying to stop the Ravens. I agree with that. I'm a lot more pessimistic about those matchups without him.

Like most seasons, this one is going to be defined by injuries. The loss of Bush hurts. So far, the Steelers have been able to weather all the injuries on the offensive line and the loss of Johnson for a couple of games. I still worry about guys with injury histories like Conner and Tuitt. They are such a huge part of what this team is doing right now and trusting them that much makes me nervous. The rest of the schedule is tougher than what the Steelers have faced so far, though I'm not so quick to dismiss putting a beating on the Browns. They are a decent team, one that could end up in the playoffs as a wild card.

I won't lose sight of what I have seen that I do like. The defensive line and outside linebackers are playing as well as ever. The secondary looked better yesterday. The offense is also better than I expected, largely due to Conner and Claypool. Conner wasn't just hurt a lot last season. Most of the time, he just didn't look like the same back we saw in 2018. Now he does. I liked Claypool, but never imagined an impact like he has had the last two games. There are some real positives beyond just the record through five games.

 

They have time to make a trade if they want to by 11-3

 

This is what sucks because we couldn’t really afford to lose anyone on defense, and it was bound to happen.

 

Just like that we are

5th in PPG on offense
2nd in PPG on defense

Only team top 5 on both. Damn bush injury...