Tim Benz: If Week 1 wasn't the real Steelers, then they better show up against Browns

Before the 2023 NFL regular season started, perhaps no one in the national media was pumping up the Pittsburgh Steelers more than Kyle Brandt of NFL Network’s “Good Morning Football.”

“The Steelers are going to be in the playoffs this year,” Brandt said in August. “There’s seven spots in the AFC. Seven in one of the best AFCs ever. Maybe the best ever. I think the Steelers will have one. They’re going to be a surprise conversation team. … I’m a huge believer in the 2023 Steelers. Love ‘em.”

Now, after the Week 1 debacle against the San Francisco 49ers, Brandt said on Friday’s show that he still believes in the Steelers even if they looked like one of the worst teams in the NFL.

“Pittsburgh, c’mon. Let’s just flush it. Let’s get rid of it. That wasn’t you,” Brandt said. “I spent the whole offseason saying, ‘Guys, trust Pittsburgh. Mike Tomlin always wins! Blah, blah, blah.’ They were terrible in Week 1. It’s OK. It’s not OK to lose this (week). You’re going against Cleveland, who is getting all the respect. Pittsburgh, come on. Guys, that wasn’t you, and we know it. Just reassure us. That’s it.”

I somehow don’t see the Browns being the willing partners to reassure Steelers fans as they have so often been in recent decades. But beneath Brandt’s unabashed support of the Steelers, there is an interesting question to investigate.

Is he wrong? Was that really what we should expect to see from the 2023 Steelers? Or was the Steelers’ Week 1 defeat just an aberration?

Especially given that the 49ers might be the best team the Steelers face all season.

“They did a great job. They’ve got great players, and they won the game, so they deserve all the credit,” offensive coordinator Matt Canada said Thursday. “I don’t think we looked at it like we were surprised or shocked very much. We just didn’t get the execution or the plays. It just didn’t work. It’s on all of us to find out why and get back to playing the way we were playing (in the preseason) and have played and worked through this whole process.”

If we are going to be literal about the question, of course, that’s not who the Steelers are. They aren’t going to be that bad the rest of the year. That effort was worse than many expansion teams have put forth.

“We just didn’t play well,” quarterback Kenny Pickett said this week. “We didn’t execute near what we need to be. … I thought the preparation for the week was good. It’s just about going out there, playing well, and executing.”

Unfortunately, though, that blowout defeat might be an accurate commentary about where the Steelers are compared to the league’s elite squads.

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After all, the Steelers were dusted by the Philadelphia Eagles and Buffalo Bills last year by a combined score of 73-16. They also lost 37-30 at home to the Cincinnati Bengals in the second meeting between the clubs. That was a 14-point game in the fourth quarter until the Steelers scored a garbage-time touchdown.

So, by extension, I think that result is indicative of who the Steelers still are in other ways. I believe it is evidence that they are closer to the nine- or 10-win club you saw predicted here and during recent “Madden Monday” podcasts, as opposed to the wild 12-win and 13-win predictions on local sports talk radio, in fan blogs, and from some of the team-friendly media types in town.

“You don’t get to the National Football League as an individual unless you’re able to overcome some adversity, bounce back from injury, bad performances, etc. Smile in the face of adversity,” head coach Mike Tomlin said Tuesday.

Smile in the face of adversity? Well, if the Steelers lose to the Browns on Monday night, they better head to Las Vegas next week, grinning from ear to ear.

And if they drop that one too, we’ll really know these Steelers are a carbon copy of the 2022 squad.

A team that digs itself a huge hole and spends the remainder of the season clawing just to get to .500.

But I’m not going to convict the Steelers for two more losses in games they haven’t even played yet. I will, however, convict them of playing one of the worst home games of the Tomlin era.

It was a performance so ugly no one should feel guilty about wondering if Brandt is wrong and if it was a reflection of who these Steelers really are.

We’ll have a much clearer picture by about 11:30 p.m. Monday night if they find themselves on the wrong side of the final score against the Browns.

Listen: Tim Benz previews the Steelers-Browns game with Kenny Roda of WHBC Radio in Canton.