Steelers schedule: Projecting the Steelers record heading into their Week 9 bye

The Pittsburgh Steelers have been the NFL’s Iowa Hawkeyes through the first four weeks of the season. Both are consistent football programs that inexplicably finish with double-digit wins playing the most unspectacular brand of football imaginable.

It’s got to be maddening for teams like the (ahem) Cowboys. They won’t blow the hinges off with explosive plays, but instead, they beat you into submission through incredible competency under pressure. At some point, opponents look down in shock, realize their souls have left their bodies, and come to terms with the fact that the Steelers have bullied them into walking toward the light. 

The 3-1 Steelers feel like they should be 4-0 after losing a trap game to the Indianapolis Colts. However, Three primetime games in the next four weeks as the Steelers complete the first half of their schedule before a Week 9 bye week gives them a chance to make up for letting a potential win slip through their fingers against an inferior opponent. The outlook is optimistic, assuming Justin Fields doesn’t backslide and JJ Watt is healthy. Assumptions are dangerous things to make, but someone's got to do it.

Week 5: vs. Dallas Cowboys 

Chances of Winning: 6 in 10

How Fields nearly wound up a backup while Jones earned a contract extension in New York should be studied by science. He is infinitely more talented, however, you could also make the argument that Fields is having the same career-saving, low-risk, and low-reward passing campaign Jones did in 2022. 

Last week, the Giants outgained the Cowboys, generated more first downs, and their pressure held Dak Prescott in check well enough to allow Jones to outproduce him through the air. More importantly, New York dominated the time of possession. The Steelers lead the NFL in average time of possession during regulation thanks in part to a ball-control offense led by Fields and a top-two scoring defense. Micah Parsons is a one-man wrecking crew that will force Fields to speed up his mental clock from the pocket. However, being able to play at home on Sunday night, following an unfocused loss where the team is more receptive to coaching feels like the type of week Mike Tomlin puts a coaching clinic on for and the team responds to it.

Week 6: at Las Vegas Raiders

Chances of Winning: 7 in 10

Gardner Minshew is a Ryan Fitzpatrick clone. He's got fantastic facial hair, a unique backstory and he'll either carry an offense to an electric win in a game they should have had no chance in or he'll chuck it through a hurricane and leave his own coaches mystified. The Raiders are either a 4-13 team by January or 8-9 because of Minshew. There's no in-between. However, Minshew may not have a No. 1 target soon, depending on the resolution of Adams’ trade request. 

The Raiders offense isn’t explosive, but it is malleable in its current form. Perhaps knowing an Adams’ trade saga was on the horizon Antonio Pierce has been modifying the Raiders in real-time from a pass-first unit that rushed for 27 yards in a win over the Baltimore Ravens and calls runs on fewer first downs than any team in the league into a power football offense obsessed with matriculating the ball through the terra firma instead of by air.

Pierce is doing a commendable job amidst the tempest, but the Raiders are a ship on the verge of capsizing. Pierce liking a post about Davante Adams' trade destinations evolving into the straw that broke the camel's back for Adams speaks to how the Raiders are hemorrhaging internally despite a 2-2 record, and very well could be 1-3 if it weren’t for a Browns touchdown wiped out by offensive holding and Amari Cooper bouncing passes off his chest. 

Week 7: vs. New York Jets 

Chances of Winning: 4 in 10

Aaron Rodgers is beginning to resemble a doppelganger of Broncos-era Russell Wilson, complete with a Nathaniel Hackett action doll. Rodgers is the milk Salah kept past the expiration date thinking it's fine as long as the smell doesn’t overwhelm him after lifting the cap. He’s beginning to curdle in real time. But Rodgers does have some usage left in it if you boil it. Aaron Rodgers is defiant enough to occasionally beat Father Time.

He was awful against the Broncos in the rain, but the Steelers also know something about a letdown performance. The Jets secondary is arguably the league's best and one that is going to be a problem for Fields. There’s bound to be a loss in this stretch, and this appears to be the week it will occur. 

Week 8: vs. New York Giants 

Chances of Winning: 8 in 10

If the Steelers let Daniel Jones beat them, Steeler Nation might take a dive into the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio Rivers. A loss to the Big Blue is the sort of result heading into a bye that can send a team spiraling.

Malik Nabers is a game-changer, but not enough to make the most vanilla quarterback in the league a match for this Tomlin-Austin defense. The Giants demonstrated on Sunday night why they are the league’s No. 29-scoring offense for a reason. They can’t convert touchdowns in the red zone when the field constricts and their ground game is 30th in the league, which makes their commitment to play-action even more comical. 

At 7-2, the Steelers would possess the record of a serious contender, but three out of the next four are at home and the back half of the schedule is the crucible that will separate the cream from the crop. They’ll need all the cushion they can afford before the credit card bill comes due in the form of Washington, Kansas City, and Philadelphia, followed by six games against division rivals Baltimore, Cincinnati, as well as Cleveland.