PITTSBURGH — The dust has settled from the NFL's free agency period and the draft, so now we have a pretty good idea how every team will look heading into their offseason programs. There may be a few more free-agent deals signed, but most of those moves will be for depth.
Every team will continue to try upgrading until the season begins so there could be some adjustments and tweaks, but none will likely significantly change the landscape of who is favored to be contenders.
The rosters are what they are for the most part, and so now we can at least have somewhat intelligent discussions about next season and make some educated guesses and predictions.
And then we have Pro Football Focus, which ran 10,000 computer simulations of the AFC North race based on all the information available and came up with this in terms of who won the division and what percentage of times:
— Browns: 46.3
— Ravens: 34.4
— Bengals: 9.7
— Steelers: 9.6
That is not a misprint at all. The Bengals are slight favorites over the Steelers to win the division according to some computer simulators. And I guess by extension, that means the computers think the Bengals are slight favorites to finish third in the division, right?
Not quite, but it does show that the expectations for the Steelers aren't very high. And perhaps more importantly ... did I miss some influx of talent from the Bengals? Because they have stunk for a few years. They can't be that much better. I just refuse to believe that.
Nevertheless, I can't speak to the other three teams but the Steelers are not going to be the last-place team in the division. I don't think they will win it, but all of these predictions of their demise are a little tough to understand given that they won 12 games last year and seemed to have filled some major holes.
I can't figure out why so many people say that the Steelers are going to take a big step back. I don't know if they are better than last year — though I think on paper they are — but I can't see how anyone thinks they are markedly worse.
"But Paul, they lost four of five down the stretch and got blasted by the Browns in the playoffs! But Paul, Ben Roethlisberger is a year older and looked done! But Mike Hilton and Steven Nelson!"
I have heard it all and none of it makes much sense to me. Yes, the Steelers faded down the stretch but, well, they did win 12 games and all of them count the last time I checked.
The offensive line is going to be better. Alejandro Villanueva had a bad season at left tackle last year. Maurkice Pouncey wasn't very good at all for most of the season. David DeCastro was never fully healthy and it showed in his play. And Zach Banner was supposed to be the right tackle but got hurt and was out for the season, so his backup, Chuks Okorafor, played the entire season and was inconsistent at best.
Kevin Dotson should be even better in his second year. DeCastro should rebound if his knee is healthy, and Banner is back. Those three things alone make them better, and I believe rookie Kendrick Green will be a good addition at center.
And of course they actually have what appears to be a legitimate starting running back in rookie Najee Harris.
I don't think the Steelers will turn into the Nebraska Cornhuskers of the early 1990s, but they will run the ball more and better than they did last year. The biggest weakness of the offense was running the ball and that made it easy to defend.
Defensively, the Steelers will get a huge cog back in middle linebacker Devin Bush. He missed a big chunk of last season with a torn ACL and his replacements were mostly average. Yes, they lost Bud Dupree, but Alex Highsmith looks like he will be a good replacement and will grow from his experience last season.
They do have to replace Hilton and Nelson, but Cam Sutton will be a good corner and I bet they will sign a low priced free agent once teams make cuts to trim their rosters. The Steelers have been masters of finding those kinds of gems late, so I believe they will figure out a solution at the slot corner.
Again, I'm not predicting a Super Bowl and probably not a division title, but these predictions of the Steelers finishing last or having some sort of collapse seem reactionary and not based in facts. The Steelers, based on the moves they made, are able to compete in the division and at least win nine or 10 games.
