Tim Benz: Steelers have used lull ahead of the season to pull off upsets before — time to do it again in 2023

With the notable exception of an 11-0 start in 2020, many recent editions of the Pittsburgh Steelers have needed to scramble late in the year because of rotten starts to seasons.

Over the past decade, Mike Tomlin’s teams have had a nasty habit of putting themselves in playoff peril even before the Halloween decorations came out of the garage.

Last year’s team was no exception, starting the season 1-4 — and eventually 2-6 — before the bye hit during the first week of November.

• The 9-7-1 group of 2021 began 1-3 before miraculously scraping into the playoffs.

• The 2019 team got off to a 1-4 start before winning seven of eight to remain competitive (for a while) without Ben Roethlisberger.

• In 2018, Pittsburgh began 1-2-1, got up to 7-2-1, then missed the playoffs at 9-6-1.

•The 2014 AFC North champions (11-5) were 3-3 after six weeks with a loss to the 2-14 Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

• Tomlin’s 2013 club was 0-4, then 2-6 at the midway point and missed the playoffs.

• The 2012 team was 2-3. It finished 8-8 and missed the playoffs.

During the last two seasons, though, there is a disconnect between that trend and the season opener.

The Steelers went to Buffalo and beat the defending AFC East champion Bills 23-16 to begin 2021. In the 2022 opener, the Steelers traveled to Cincinnati and upset the reigning AFC North champion Bengals in overtime, 23-20.

The Steelers may have played the Hall of Fame game in 2021, but starting that year, the NFL shortened its preseason to three games.

In 2019, the Steelers “only” had nine days off between the fourth preseason contest and the season opener in New England — which they lost 33-3.

There was no preseason in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. When the ‘21 campaign began for the Steelers in Buffalo, it had been 15 days since their last preseason game. In 2022, they waited 14 days before heading to Cincy.

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This week, there will be a total of 16 days between the preseason finale in Atlanta and the regular-season opener at home on Sept. 10 versus another defending division champion — the San Francisco 49ers.

So has that been part of it? Have the extra preparation days helped the Steelers game plan better for one specific opponent — usually a really good one — more than two weeks out, as opposed to using the first chunk of that time to just work on themselves?

Mason Rudolph and Chuks Okorafor are the longest tenured Steelers on offense at six years apiece. Rudolph says one thing he has noticed is that how the franchise practices during August allows the club to get more specific for the opener once the calendar flips to September.

“I just feel like we work harder than other teams. When you hear from guys who’ve been to different places — just sort of the way we’re hardened through training camp. Some teams that don’t play their starters in preseason. Cincinnati was one of them. Who knows if that affects you or not. But I feel like mentally more than anything, we kind of feel like we have an edge,” Rudolph said. “We do transition. I think we’ve already kind of started a bit of that transition and looking to San Francisco. … I think we’ve got a good plan.”

That better be the case against San Francisco. As much practice time specifically spent for the 49ers offense as possible will be key, given how they can run so many different plays out of the same personnel looks due to the versatility of Brandon Aiyuk, Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel and George Kittle.

Niners head coach Kyle Shanahan could run those four players out on every play, plus one more, and have about a million different plays off those looks.

New Steeler Markus Golden knows all about that after playing against the Niners frequently. The linebacker spent six of his eight seasons in the NFC West as an Arizona Cardinal.

“They’ve got a lot of playmakers over there. Anytime you’ve got a bunch of playmakers on one team and a bunch of guys that can do a bunch of different things, man, you’re going to be able to mix it up a little bit — and that’s what they do,” Golden said. “They do a lot of motions, a lot of moving around — guys coming around and blocking. Guys going out. You think they are coming back to block you, but now they’re going out for a pass. He’s a good offensive-minded coach, and I have a lot of respect for them.”

Theoretically, the extra time should also give increased opportunity for all of the new components on defense (potentially 12 new contributors playing regularly) to get on the same page for what they need to do to slow down San Francisco.

“Having more preparation time is always good,” new Steelers safety Keanu Neal said Monday. “The complexity of their run game, being able to have a few more days for that, it’s definitely going to be good for us.”

It’s not just a matter of one game out of 17 for the Steelers. San Francisco is currently a 2.5-point favorite. This is a swing game. A toss-up. Right off the bat. Just like Buffalo was. Just like Cincy was.

And, unlike many other examples in September, there is some recent history to suggest the Steelers might just pull it off.