With the 2021 NFL season complete, Steelers have underwhelming public perception, expectations for 2022

When you think of the Pittsburgh Steelers compared to other NFL franchises, do these names pop into your head immediately?

The Atlanta Falcons. The Washington Commanders. The Carolina Panthers.

How about some other long-standing organizations with a history of winning Super Bowls that have fallen on hard times recently?

Teams such as the Miami Dolphins, Chicago Bears and New York Giants.

Because according to how oddsmakers are lining up their books for the 2022 season, the Steelers are listed among those clubs when it comes to their odds of winning Super Bowl LVII.

BetRivers.com has the Steelers at +5000 (50-1) to win next year’s NFL championship, right along with Atlanta, Washington, Carolina and Miami. The Bears and Giants are at +6600, one rung down the betting ladder.

MGM and Draft Kings also have the Steelers at +5000. Caesar’s and FanDuel have them at +6000.

In terms of odds to win the AFC and go to next year’s big game, BetRivers says the Steelers are at +2500 with the Dolphins and Las Vegas Raiders. Only the New York Jets, Jacksonville Jaguars and Houston Texans have longer odds. Those three teams combined to win 11 games and lose 40 in 2021.

Within the division, the Cincinnati Bengals (+800), Baltimore Ravens (+1100) and Cleveland Browns (+2000) all have shorter odds of getting to the Super Bowl.

Gambling lines aren’t necessarily predictions on how a team will do, as much as they are projections on what odds need to be set to bring in the most money.

But if the odds are set that long and the payouts are tabbed that high, the expectation must be that neither the house nor the public will be showing much faith in the Steelers winning a championship of any sort next season.

That’s despite the fact that — regardless of all of their warts — the Steelers won the division with 12 wins two years ago and lost out on a division title by half a game (and a tiebreaker) to Cincinnati this year.

It appears public sentiment outside of Pittsburgh isn’t buying into the hope that the franchise “can still make a run and stay competitive with Mason Rudolph or Dwayne Haskins” at quarterback.

I know. I know. Say it enough times out loud, and maybe you’ll speak it into existence.

Count me as part of the camp that isn’t willing to try. If that’s the decision made at quarterback, you can also count me as someone who is expecting the Steelers to win only seven games or so.

Admittedly, the Steelers made the playoffs in 2021 with nine wins despite having immobile, substandard quarterback play from Ben Roethlisberger (24th in passer rating, 29th in yards per attempt). There’s an understandable presumption that the Steelers offense could get even worse next year with Roethlisberger’s second-half bounce-back ability and clutch fourth-quarter play subtracted from the equation.

I’m surely not alone in raising that concern. However, come September, we all know what will happen in Pittsburgh.

The Steelers will have made a move or two we like in free agency. The city will talk itself into the draft being the second coming of the 1974 group — again — and we’ll convince ourselves there’s no reason why the Steelers can’t eclipse the Bengals atop the AFC North next year.

Quarterback deficiencies or not.

“Hey, they won divisions with Tommy Maddox and Mike Tomczak, you know!”

Get used to hearing that. Without, of course, referencing how much better those teams were around those quarterbacks than what Rudolph, Haskins, somebody else’s cast-off backup, or a high draft choice quarterback will be dealing with in 2022.

When Maddox took over in 2002, the previous Steelers team had gone 13-3 and went to the AFC Championship game. When Tomczak took over in 1996, the previous Steelers team went to the Super Bowl.

Last year’s team couldn’t beat the Detroit Lions at home.

“I would never sit here and say we’re going to change our goal of trying to win a Super Bowl. Every season that’s got to be the goal, as far as I’m concerned. We certainly have work to do with an opening at our quarterback position,” owner Art Rooney II said via Steelers.com after the season. “I’m excited about the challenge, and I know Coach Tomlin and everybody else here is excited by that challenge.”

They may be “excited” within the walls of the Steelers offices. Outside of them, especially outside of Pittsburgh, “hesitant” may be a more appropriate word. Or perhaps “dubious.” How about “skeptical”?

Yeah. Those all work.

I’ll use two words, “reality check.” At least based on how the public perceives the Steelers.

No longer is this a team that is entering the season with just as good of a shot to win it as anybody else because of continuity from the head coach, quarterback, management and defensive personnel.

But, more so, this is a team that’s a long shot because of changes at QB, general manager and numerous questions along both lines of scrimmage.

Those are issues that can be tamped down by those who wave their Terrible Towels. Meanwhile, red flags are being waved by those who have no such allegiance.

Like all teams, the Steelers face challenges every year. Rarely, though, is one of those challenges fighting a perception that the organization is in a below-average position to win. Even in what were expected to be down years, league observers could always fall back on the credo of, “The Steelers will find a way because they are the Steelers.”

Now folks nationally seem to think the Steelers are more like the Falcons.

Not exactly inspirational stuff heading into an offseason with so many questions.