In the span of just a few months, the Pittsburgh Steelers went from being the team no one was talking about to a team every NFL pundit seems to have an opinion on. And those opinions are all over the place.
One analyst who isn’t as high on the Steelers as some others is ESPN’s Dominique Foxworth. He went on ESPN and offered something of a confusing analysis of the Steelers but led with him believing it is unlikely they make the playoffs.
“I mean, they’re a playoff contender, but I think it’s unlikely. They are a team that we saw overachieve last year, and we’re expecting a leap from Kenny Pickett. Their biggest problem was their offensive line, and they’ve addressed it, but they haven’t solved it. With the issues with Matt Canada, I expect that to improve also. But as talented as this defense is, it’s not without flaws that can be attacked. I think they’ll be good, well-coached, competitive, and they might make the playoffs. But the problem is their conference. If they were in the NFC, I’d guarantee they make the playoffs. But in the AFC, there’s a lot of teams in their division that could make the playoffs before we even get to the wider conference as a whole.”
So while Foxworthy acknowledges that the Steelers have improved basically across the board, they won’t improve on their 9-8 record from last season when all of those things were much worse? Okay, sure. Either way, this won’t be anything that impacts the Steelers but all of these preseason proclamations will be worth tracking, should the Steelers play up to what they’ve shown.
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