Steelers schedule 2023: Game-by-game predictions for upcoming season
By Tommy Jaggi
Week 7: Steelers @ Rams, October 22nd, 4:05 p.m. ET (FOX)
A few years ago, there would have been plenty of reason to worry if the Steelers were traveling to the west coast to take on Sean McVay, Aaron Donald, and the Los Angeles Rams. Now, all of a sudden, LA feels like one of the least-intimidating teams in the league. Since their Super Bowl run that resulted in a Lombardi Trophy, the Rams have fallen off a cliff in terms of talent.
This was the result of backloading contracts and trading tons of future draft capital. It has certainly caught up with them. Los Angeles had a bunch of compensatory picks this year because of their losses, but they were still without a first-rounder, and they may not have a rookie who will make an impact right away.
At this point, the Steelers are a much more talented team all around on paper than the Rams, and they shouldn't have a problem taking care of LA on the road this year. This will be their first of just three games coming in the 4:00 p.m. late-afternoon window in 2023.
Prediction: Win (5-1)
Week 8: Steelers vs Jaguars, October 29th, 1:00 p.m. ET (CBS)
Counting a playoff loss, the Pittsburgh Steelers are just 5-5 against the Jacksonville Jaguars in their last 10 matchups, per Statmuse, and things could get a lot worse. In their most recent contest in 2020, Mike Tomlin had the luxury of playing an extremely underwhelming Jags team that deployed Jake Luton at quarterback.
This resulted in a blowout Steelers win. Fast forward three years, and we are looking at a remarkably different Jacksonville team. With head coach Doug Pederson and quarterback Trevor Lawrence leading the charge, the Jags improved from a 1-15 team two years ago to a 9-8 team that won a playoff game over Justin Herbert and the Chargers this past season. Jacksonville has one of the fastest-rising offenses in the NFL and Lawrence is only scratching the surface of his potential.
With this game at home for Pittsburgh, there's obviously a chance they could pull this off, but it's going to keep pace with one of the NFL's highest-scoring offenses in the second half of the 2022 season. I have the Steelers taking a loss on their own turf in Week 8.