Steelers Now
Kevin Clark of ESPN recently ripped the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 60-1 odds to win Super Bowl LXI. He thinks those odds are absolutely laughable.
“65 to 1. What are we doing? I don’t think the Steelers are winning the Super Bowl, but they should never be that low down,” Clark said on his This Is Football podcast.
The Steelers are always at least competitive. They haven’t had a losing season since 2003. While the season ended on a brutal note last year, getting manhandled by the Houston Texans in the Wild Card game, the Steelers won the AFC North for the first time since 2020.
The Steelers’ odds to win the AFC North sit at roughly +550 across major sportsbooks, making them the third-favorites to win the division. The Baltimore Ravens are once again the favorites, followed by the Cincinnati Bengals. The Cleveland Browns are expected to be in the basement of the AFC North again, especially with All-Pro edge rusher Myles Garrett no longer on the team.
The Cincinnati Bengals have the the firepower with quarterback Joe Burrow and star wide receivers Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, but there’s still major question marks with the defense. Cincinnati did bolster the unit this offseason, however, especially with trading for three-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence.
Former Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is not high on the trajectory of the Baltimore Ravens. Despite being the Super Bowl favorites at the beginning of last season, the Ravens finished 8-9 and missed the playoffs.
Roethlisberger believes the Super Bowl window for the Ravens has closed.
“I think they’re falling apart. I don’t think they’re the same team…They just feel different. They feel like their window closed,” Roethlisberger said on his Footbahlin podcast. “To me, losing [John] Harbaugh, King Henry’s a year older, his body’s taking a beating, what’s was going on with Lamar last year? He just didn’t seem like the Lamar that we’ve been used to seeing.”
The Steelers have gone 10-7 in each of the last three seasons. But playoff success has been a lingering issue. The Steelers have not won a playoff game since Jan. 15, 2017. It’s the longest playoff win drought for the franchise since pre-1972.
Mike Tomlin closed his tenure with seven straight playoff losses. Winning a playoff game would be a best-case scenario for the Steelers in 2026. Just getting to the playoffs is not good enough.
With the Tomlin era concluded, 42-year-old quarterback Aaron Rodgers reunites with head coach Mike McCarthy. It will be interesting to see what the duo can do together in one last ride. The offense should be leaps and bounds better than last year.
This article originally appeared on Steelers Now: Analyst Think Steelers’ Super Bowl Odds Are Laughable: ‘What Are We Doing?’
