Tim Benz: The gap between a better Steelers team in '23 and a better win total

Watching a lot of football in shorts over the past two weeks at Pittsburgh Steelers’ OTAs, I find myself daydreaming about football when it actually means something.

In September. In pads. When the guy on the other side of the ball is actually trying to knock your block off.

When I do that about the 2023 Steelers, I see a team that should be significantly better than the one that went 9-8 a year ago and missed the playoffs. After all, the franchise seemed to have a pretty good offseason.

• The offensive line appears to have been significantly upgraded.

• Darnell Washington, Allen Robinson and (potentially) Hakeem Butler ought to be worthy additions in the red zone.

• The defense appears to be deeper and more versatile.

• The secondary offset some natural, free-agent attrition with a good mix of interchangeable veterans and youthful talent.

And most importantly, there is a presumption that the Steelers playbook will expand and quarterback Kenny Pickett will take a significant step forward in his second NFL season.

So I believe there is plenty of legitimate optimism for the Steelers to be a noticeably better team in ‘23 than they were in ‘22. Yet, I’m still only predicting 10 wins. Some of the 11- or 12-win predictions I’m seeing and hearing are pie-in-the-sky thinking.

That may sound like an illogical disconnect. How can I think the Steelers are going to be a markedly improved club when I’m only ready to bump their win total up by one game? Especially when their 2023 strength of schedule is only 25th (.470 opponent win percentage in 2022), according to CBSSports.com.

The reasons are much less about what the 2023 season will be and much more about what the 2022 season truly was. Let’s remember how the Steelers got to nine wins a year ago.

And let’s be honest with ourselves about it.

Because, for an entire offseason in Pittsburgh, we talked ourselves into thinking that Year 1 ABB (after Big Ben) wasn’t so bad. The team had a winning record. It stayed alive in the playoff mix until the last quarter of the regular-season finale. The team closed 7-2 down the stretch. Pickett showed some improvement late in the year. The defense looked better once T.J. Watt came back from injury.

And most importantly, did you know Mike Tomlin still has never had a losing season?

But, if we are being truthful, that nine-win Steelers team was really no better than an 8-9 club, thanks to the Cincinnati Bengals losing their long snapper in Week 1. And that 7-2 finish after the bye week came against absolute junk on the schedule. Six of the wins were against non-playoff teams. They went 1-2 in the other three games against playoff competition versus the Bengals and Ravens (without Lamar Jackson twice).

That’s garbage competition. And the Steelers still had to grind their way to a lot of close, low-scoring, ugly victories in those games.

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Not to mention, the AFC is still deep in 2023, and the AFC North, specifically, has a lot of parity. I expect the Bengals to claim the division again with roughly 11 wins and see the potential for the Steelers, Ravens and Browns to all be between 8-10 victories.

Don’t let the improvements on paper cloud your perspective on what the Steelers could do in the standings next year. For instance, the Steelers’ over-under win total at BetRivers.com is 8½ games. But it’s at minus-150 (bet $150 to win $100) to wager on the over and +120 (bet $100 to win $120) to bet the under.

There’s a reason for that. With that high of a price on the over, the oddsmakers seem pretty sure at least nine is going to hit as well. So I wouldn’t throw a lot of extra money down just because you have convinced yourself 11-12 wins are on the horizon because the team is going to be vastly better than last year.

Getting to 11 wins in the AFC is tough these days. Only three teams — the Bengals (12), Buffalo Bills (13) and Kansas City Chiefs (14) — did it last year. And I’m certainly not ready to put the Steelers into that category.

Especially since Matt Canada’s revamped offense and Pickett’s ability to run it are such important variables.

So that’s why I’m tempering my own optimism about the Steelers win total even though I’m invested in my optimism about the better brand of football I expect them to present this year.

There’s every reason to believe that this team can qualify for the postseason in 2023 and may even be competitive in a playoff game — as opposed to what would’ve been the case last year or what we saw when they got housed 42-21 in Kansas City in the 2021 playoffs.

I like over 8½ wins on the Steelers too. If you can find positive odds at 9½, that may be a worthwhile play.

But let’s not put the kids’ full college savings account on it just yet.