3. Steelers have home field advantage
The last advantage (and perhaps the most obvious) that the Steelers hold over the 49ers in the season-opener is playing this Week 1 game at home. Acrisure Stadium will be filled to the brim with 68,000 roaring fans who couldn't be more excited about this team in 2023.
It's called 'home field advantage' for a reason, and there's truth to this. Looking at the NFL as a whole, teams just tend to perform better on their own turf. Since Mike Tomlin began his tenure as the head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers back in 2007, his team is 92-36-1 on his home turf, according to Statmuse.com. Furthermore, the Steelers are 10-5-1 in Week 1 under Tomlin during his first 16 seasons.
Obviously, the Steelers are never guaranteed to have a strong start to their season (like we saw when they struggled early in 2022), but Tomlin typically has his players very well-prepared for the opening game.
For a team that has been one of the best at home and one of the best in Week 1, there's plenty of reason to believe that this home-field advantage could once again come into play and that the Pittsburgh Steelers have a sizeable advantage here over a team as talented as the San Francisco 49ers this week. The collection of their advantages could even give them the upper hand in this contest.