The Pittsburgh Steelers are 4-1 heading into Thursday Night Football against the Cincinnati Bengals. After defying early expectations, Mike Tomlin's team sits on the second-best record in the AFC and the third-best record in the NFL—trailing only the 5-1 Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Indianapolis Colts by half a game.
The pummeling win over the Cleveland Browns in Week 6 has the Steelers looking like they truly have a shot to compete in the playoffs this year... but things didn't start that way.
After the first three weeks of the season, the Steelers had a 2-1 record, but their performance on the field suggested they weren't even an average football team. Tomlin's defense looked pitiful in a narrow 34-32 win over the now 0-6 New York Jets. This was followed by an embarrassing 31-17 loss in the home opener against the Seattle Seahawks, and an undeserved win over the New England Patriots in Week 3 (which required five takeaways by the defense to get the job done).
But after their last two games, the Steelers look like a team that just went from 'pretenders' to 'contenders'... and we have the stat to prove it.
DVOA suggests the Pittsburgh Steelers are a top-10 NFL team entering Week 7
Roughly one-third of the way through the season, the Pittsburgh Steelers are flying up the power rankings. However, we have more than just subjective options that show this team has been impressive.
According to FTN, the Steelers are currently the ninth-best team in the NFL in DVOA (Defense-adjusted Value Over Average). This is an advanced football metric that measures a team's efficiency by comparing their performance on each play to the league average for that specific situation.
With a positive 14.8 percent DVOA, the Steelers rank ahead of teams like the Buffalo Bills (14.5%), the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (5.9%), the Philadelphia Eagles (2.3%), and the L.A. Chargers (1.6%). Meanwhile, the 4-2 Patriots have a -3.4 percent DVOA (thanks largely to their easy strength of schedule early in the season), while the 4-2 San Francisco 49ers have a -8.2 percent DVOA.
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This advanced metric doesn't mean everything, but it's a great predictor of which teams are actually contenders. Last year, for example, the top eight teams in DVOA were, in order, the Ravens, Lions, Packers, Bills, Eagles, Broncos, Vikings, and Chiefs.
The Steelers recently jumped into the top-10 in DVOA rankings, thanks to the stark improvement in play over their previous two games.
Just before the early Week 5 bye, the Steelers easily handled the Minnesota Vikings, looking like the better team in every facet of the game. They ran the ball effectively, passed efficiently, and played excellent defense. Tomlin's team built on this performance with a convincing Week 6 win over the Browns.
The Pittsburgh Steelers could fall back down to earth, but we knew it was going to take some time to get going this year with so many moving parts on the roster. In many statistics, this is still an average team on paper, but their impressive DVOA ranking proves that they are on track to be legitimate contenders this season.