The Steelers 2018 schedule in quarters: The 1st Quarter
The announcement of the schedule for the NFL season has become an event. I am not exactly sure why, but being as it comes during the off-season and after the draft, I guess it’s another way to keep people thinking about football (as if we ever stop), even though it will be months before games are played.
Last year I did this dive into the schedule before camp started. This year I decided to wait to see if anything interesting occurred during the first part of camp. Regardless, now it’s time for me to take a look at the Steelers schedule in my traditional 4 quarters format. Like last year, the Steelers have 5 prime time games scheduled (9/24, 9/30, 11/8, 11/18 and 12/9). They have 3 games at 4:25 and the rest are all 1 o’clock games. The first four prime-time games are back to back, 2 in the first quarter and 2 in the third quarter.
Each quarter is nicely divided into 2 home games and 2 away games, so there is no long stretch of away games and no long stretch of home games. In fact, the Steelers only play back to back away games or back to back home games once all season. That breaks down to a lot of back and forth each week.
I don’t like to make predictions on the schedule (of course the Steelers will go 16-0) too early, because frankly there are a lot of moves that can be made, problems that can occur and roster changes that happen in between when the schedule is announced and the beginning of training camp.
Again, many are claiming that the Steelers schedule is one of the weakest in the league (tied for twenty-fifth). A while back Christina Rivers wrote a nice article about how the strength of schedule can be extremely misleading, so I take the claims of “easy schedule” with a grain of salt. When you play in the AFC North, the schedule is never really easy.
Let’s begin to break the season down into quarters and take a look at how it might unfold, starting with the first quarter.
First Quarter – @Browns, Chiefs, @Buccaneers, Ravens
2 Road and 2 away games, and it’s a toggle every week, starting with the Steelers heading to Cleveland and ending as the host the Ravens in Heinz field. Any quarter that gives the Steelers two AFC North opponents is a tough quarter, and a critical one. They don’t want to slip and find themselves staring up at the division.
Last season the Steelers went 3-1, which quite honestly was a good start, and they need to start that way again. With 2 road games in the first quarter of the season, it worth noting that early in the year the Steelers have not been a great road team. Last year the Steelers were much better on the road than in years past, starting 3 -1 and finishing with an amazing 7-1 road record. That is a far cry from where they had been in seasons past, posting a record of 7-13 in their first four road games over the five seasons prior to 2017.
Unlike seasons past where they played primarily losing teams in their early road games, and it’s hard to argue that trend doesn’t continue with them staring in Cleveland. Considering their second road game, Tampa Bay is also a team who struggled last year (5-11) it’s really hard to say it’s any different this season.
However, that Tampa Bay game is potentially deceptive, and it’s noteworthy that 4 of their 5 wins last year were at home. The Steelers will need to start strong again and be a dominant road team in order to try and claim their division as well as, potentially the top seed in the AFC.
Week 1 – Cleveland
Every single year I keep thinking “this is the year the Browns will be respectable”. This is a team with a solid defense and an offense that has potential. It’s not the 0-16 team from last year and to be honest, if the Steelers don’t come out firing on most of their cylinders, this is a game that could be there for the Browns to take.
The Browns added what they hope (for the umpteenth time) is a franchise quarterback in Baker Mayfield, but the chances are that the Steelers will be facing Tyrod Taylor in game one. Despite the fact that Antonio Callaway may face suspension for a marijuana possession charge reported on the 7th, the Browns look to have plenty of weapons for Taylor to try and exploit. Josh Gordon is no joke, no doubt about it, and he looks primed to have an awesome season. Adding Jarvis Landry was also a nice pickup and David Njoku still has tons of potential. With running backs, Carlos Hyde, Duke Johnson, Jr., and rookie Nick Chubb the Browns look to be a much-improved offensive unit.
The defense wasn’t bad, to begin with. The Browns did move some parts, trading Danny Shelton to the Patriots and adding linebacker Mychal Kendricks, but for the most part, this is the same defensive unit you saw last season, with a year of experience under the belt. There are potential stars in the making on this unit and they are young.
All that being said, the Steelers should win this game. They are the better team and it’s too darn hard for me to pick the Browns over the Steelers right now. I like what I see in camp, and I’ll be interested to see how it translates to the field.
Steelers 24 – Browns 17
Week 2 – Kansas City
It’s fair to say that the Steelers have had success against the Chiefs in their last few meetings. Over the last 10 meetings, the Steelers are 7-3 (including playoff games). They have been, for the most part, close games decided by fewer than 10 points in most cases (throw out the 43-14 win in 2016).
But those were a different group of Chiefs. The new group will be led by second-year quarterback Patrick Mahomes and has added Sammy Watkins to pair with Tyreek Hill and tight end Travis Kelce. With Charcandrick West at RB the offense could be explosive. There really is only one big question:
Is Patrick Mahomes ready?
If he is, this will be a solid, maybe even playoff level team. If he’s not, then it will struggle. Regardless, the Steelers have them at home, and early in the season, so it’s likely Mahomes is not yet fully integrated into the scheme of things and they will still be trying to figure out what works best. That could be a break for the Steelers.
It will be interesting to see if Le’Veon Bell is still trying to get in “football shape” at this point. He had a great game against the Chiefs last year, but that was 6 games in rather than the second game of the season.
The Steelers may struggle again, and people might start complaining about the offense, but I think they’ll do enough to win their second game and start off 2-0.
Steelers 28 – Chiefs 20
Week 3 – Tampa Bay
What is it about the third game of the season? Some of their biggest flops seem to have come in the third game of the season. In 2012 it was the Raiders (34-31). 2013, the Bears (40-23). And in more recent times the Eagles (34-3) and the Bears (23-17) again! They’ve had their struggles in that third game. Will this year be different?
The Buccaneers will likely be without their starting quarterback as Jameis Winston will be serving the final game of his three-game suspension for violating the NFL conduct policy. That likely means the Steelers will face Ryan Fitzpatrick as the starter. The question will be which version of Fitzpatrick will they see? The one who doesn’t throw interceptions and throws touchdowns, or the more common version who is happy if anyone catches the balls he throws? (OK, that’s not fair, he probably isn’t happy when the other team catches them…probably).
With Mike Evans and DeSean Jackson as receivers and rookie Ronald Jones II at running back the Bucs still have weapons, it will depend on if Fitzpatrick has time to use them. Jones is of particular concern because he has the ability to break runs for large chunks of yardage. He had 12 runs of 40 yards or more in his USC career, and the Steelers were, at times, susceptible to big ground gains last year. There will be work to be done to keep the running game in check, especially if it’s being leaned on to help out Fitzpatrick.
Tampa is a perfect example of a team that slants the schedule towards “easy” because of last year’s win/loss totals, but in fact, it may be a much more difficult team than expected. They have rebuilt their defensive line so that it’s not just Gerald McCoy, but now includes Jason Pierre-Paul, Vinny Curry, and Beau Allen as well as rookie Vita Vea. The line has the potential to be really good and that will benefit their secondary and linebackers who still feel a bit suspect to me.
This game feels like Chicago of 2017. It’s not because it’s the third game, but it’s a team that is better than its previous season’s record would indicate, and one that wants to prove something. The NFC South is a tough division and Tampa will be hard pressed to make the playoffs if they start slow. The Steelers don’t even get the benefit of this being a trap game for Tampa, as they have Chicago the following week and the Eagles the week before. If anything, it could be a letdown game if they upset the Eagles, but that seems unlikely.
While this is a game I think the Steelers can easily lose if they are sluggish at all, I can’t pick against them in this scenario. I think Antonio Brown, Juju Smith-Schuster and the rest of the offense are going to be able to expose the Bucs secondary if Ben has time. I have too much respect for our offensive line and what they’ve done the past few seasons to think they won’t give Ben the time he needs. If Bell is able to use this game as his springboard for the season, it could even get ugly.
Steelers 35 – Bucs 17
Week 4 – Baltimore
Last year the Steelers faced the Ravens in their fourth game, but it was in Baltimore rather than Pittsburgh. They shocked all of us by easily defeating the Ravens 26-9 for their first win in Baltimore in quite a while. The Steelers didn’t fare as well in Pittsburgh, barely eking out a win 39-38 late in the season.
The truth is, you never know with these two teams. We all know about the rivalry, we all know about the mutual dislike and how tough they play each other. These games turn on emotion and for some reason playing at Heinz sometimes brings out the best in the Ravens. Remember the Christmas Day game and Brown’s “Immaculate Extension” on top of last year’s 1-point thriller?
The bottom line is I think the Ravens are a team that is going to struggle this year. We discussed it on the podcast when we did our AFC North preview of the team, they aren’t that frightening. It should still be Joe Flacco’s team at this point, which means the Steelers know what they are going to get. The Ravens may put up a good fight, but they don’t have the horses to keep up with the Steelers. Willie Snead? Breshad Perriman? Michael Crabtree? I’m not frightened. The offense simply doesn’t feel threatening. Not that any of these guys are bad, but they aren’t concerning.
The defense should still be good, but at some point, age will strike and some of their players will start to decline. Might that be this season? The Ravens have been bitten badly by the injury bug over the past few seasons and one has to wonder if that trend could continue or if they manage to keep guys like Jimmy Smith healthy? They will need to keep themselves from being in the basement of the AFC North.
As I said, you never know with these two teams, but it’s not possible for me to pick the Ravens right now. The Steelers have a more talented and deeper roster and this game should probably be an easier win than it will be. I am going to predict a close one again, but the Steelers end the first quarter of the season perfect.
Steelers 24 – Ravens 21
Conclusion
For the first time in many years, I’m more excited to see what our defense does than I am with what offense might do. I am not at all worried about the offense, don’t get me wrong. I think it will be dynamic and fun as it has been in years past. It might even be better than we expect and I think there is a good chance of that.
It’s been a while since the defense started to feel like it might have a lot of potential playmakers, and right now I’m getting that kind of feeling. It’s still early, and camp is still young with the first preseason game still ahead, but I am looking forward to seeing what this defense can do.
And a perfect start to the season could be there for the taking!
Next: The Second Quarter
