How the Steelers can tell us all we need to know in Week 1

Every NFL fan thinks the same: The preseason is better than nothing, but you don’t feel the true wind of the football season blowing in your face until the regular season begins. It’s where the games really matter, and the journey to the Super Bowl officially begins.

For Steelers fans, that drive begins this Sunday, Sep. 8, in Atlanta against the Falcons—and while the game may sound forgettable, I assure you it isn’t. This is for one reason and one reason only: It has the potential to serve as a depiction of how Pittsburgh’s entire 2024-25 stretch will unfold.

Now sure, that sounds a tad dramatic for one game (and especially the season opener), but I firmly believe that if the Steelers lose, it’s nonetheless true, and why? Because of the horrid product that spawns from combining Pittsburgh’s offensive impotence with its cutthroat schedule.

Even with the Falcons having both a comfortable quarterback situation with Kirk Cousins and one of the top up-and-coming receivers in Drake London, they undoubtedly serve as one of the weakest powers on Pittsburgh’s calendar. In other words, when you’ve already been a struggling franchise for years and likely have little room for error, Atlanta feels like a must-win.

But of course, being a winner means playing like a winner, and that brings us to today’s top takeaway: Pittsburgh was in no way a winner this preseason.

The 2024-25 Steelers appear to be riding on little improvement

I hate to be the Negative Nancy who always beats the dead horse regarding Pittsburgh’s struggles, but when they’re so blatant that a blind man could see them, I’m left with no other choice.

The fact of the matter is that the Steelers offense looked as mediocre as it has for several seasons now, and even when it scored its most points (at Detroit), it wasn’t enough to avoid the first winless preseason Pittsburgh’s suffered in over a decade.

And before anyone even dares open their mouths about those losses not being adequate representations of how the offense will operate, let me remind you that not only was Arthur Smith on the sideline, but several staples of our approaching run—including Russell Wilson—saw decent playtime.

Basically, if the offense we saw was led by its coordinator and starting QB (among others), how are we supposed to pretend that the all-too-familiar nature of its underwhelming performance means nothing? And while we’re asking questions, how can we safely assume that it’d be able to keep up with the Falcons when their defense was far from the league’s worst last year? Also, if it can’t keep up with Atlanta, what are the odds that it can with Dallas, Baltimore, Cincinnati, or Kansas City?

All of these concerns amount to one unfortunate truth: We have a good chance of seeing the same Steelers against Atlanta that we’ve seen for an eternity, and that creates a very real risk of early defeat they won’t be able to afford. What would that tell us? Simple—we’re in for another long season.