Pittsburgh Steelers ranked very low in Seth Walder’s predictive ratings

The Pittsburgh Steelers are coming off two dismal losses in back-to-back weeks. Here’s why Seth Walder has them ranked so low in his predictive ratings. 

After starting the 2021 season with a record of 1-3, it looked as if the Pittsburgh Steelers were going to turn things around. Mike Tomlin’s team won their next four games, but things have taken a turn for the worse in the month of November.

It started when the Steelers narrowly escaped with a  29-27 home win over the Chicago Bears. In the following week, Pittsburgh tied at home to the NFL’s worst team in the Detroit Lions. Now they have given up 41 points in back-to-back losses.

This team clearly isn’t hitting “the standard” that Tomlin so often refers to, and their DVOA would suggest that this team is well below average. Seth Walder would have to agree. The ESPN analytics expert recently came up with a formula to predict how much each team would be favored by over the average NFL team. The Steelers ranked 23rd with an average spread of -1.8. Here’s a look at his rantings:

According to this formula, Walder has just 9 teams worse than the Steelers this year. While a team like the Buffalo Bills would be favored on average, by 8.2 points per game, Pittsburgh would be an average of 1.8-point underdogs per contest. After what we have seen from them this year, this shouldn’t be hard to believe.

Why Steelers are so low on predictive ratings

Entering Week 13, the Pittsburgh Steelers are 22nd in both points per game (20.4) and offensive yards per contest (325.5), according to Team Rankings. Though I predicted the offensive wouldn’t be very good again this year, the defense has been an utter disappointment from what we have come to expect.

So far in 2021, Pittsburgh’s defense has allowed 24.3 points per game and 367.5 yards per contest. This is good for 23rd and 24th, respectively.

In addition to all of this, the Steelers have proved that they have an offense that doesn’t have a lot of firepower and a quarterback who no longer has the ability to take over games. From an efficiency standpoint, Ben Roethlisberger has been one of the worst quarterbacks in the NFL this year, and the fact that the Steelers are scraping for scores in each contest doesn’t help their cause.

Sadly, this team just isn’t very good right now. This isn’t to say that they can’t turn things around, but it’s becoming more and more apparent that a lack of talent is a big issue. Like it or not, the Steelers are trending in the wrong direction and their roster could be in need of a major overhaul.