May 17, 2024 4 min read

By Dale Lolley

For the Observer-Reporter

All the Steelers wanted for Christmas was certainly not the Kansas City Chiefs.

But that’s what they’re getting with the schedule the NFL released a few days ago.

Worse, with Christmas falling on a Wednesday this year, that means the Steelers will host the two-time defending Super Bowl champions on a short week.

And they’ll do it in the middle of a stretch of eight games to close out the season against their AFC North opponents. The Steelers play all of their games against the Ravens, Bengals and Browns in Week 11 or later.

“It’s probably not exactly how I would have drawn it up, but we’ve got to do the best we can,” team president Art Rooney II said.

No, it’s doubtful the Steelers would have drawn up a schedule such as this. After their Week 9 bye, the Steelers play six games against teams that made the playoffs in 2023. And two of the games that are against non-playoff teams from a year ago are against the Bengals, a team that largely didn’t make the postseason because quarterback Joe Burrow missed most of the season.

He’ll be back in 2024.

“On the positive side, we’ve got some high-profile, marquee games with the Cowboys, and Chiefs on Christmas Day, a couple of other prime-time games,” Rooney said. “We’ll be playing in front of a big audience most of the time, which is a good thing. A lot of division games are at the end of the schedule, so it will be an interesting stretch there toward the end.”

Interesting indeed.

The Steelers are going to have to stack some wins early in the season, to be sure, if they’re going to stay afloat later in the season.

And even that will be challenging. Three of the first four games come on the road, including two in a row to open the season.

All that being said, the Steelers have built a solid roster. They’ve invested in rebuilding the line of scrimmage. If this season turns into a battle of attrition – which they typically do – the Steelers are built to handle it.

But they didn’t get any help at all from the league office.

• ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler reported that veteran defensive lineman Cam Heyward won’t take part in the team’s OTA sessions as he and the Steelers work on a contract extension.

This really isn’t newsworthy.

Heyward had surgery to repair a torn groin suffered in Week 1 last season, then had another surgery at the end of the season. The 35-year-old essentially played 11 games on one leg last season.

Even if he weren’t negotiating a contract extension – to lower his 2024 salary cap hit of $22 million – he likely wouldn’t be taking part in any offseason work.

And in case anyone wondered what the Steelers thoughts are regarding both Heyward and running back Najee Harris, whose fifth-year option the team declined to pick up earlier this month, Pittsburgh wants them both here in the long term.

“I can tell you we think the world of Cam, think the world of Najee,” Steelers GM Omar Khan said Wednesday night while also talking about the schedule release on the Steelers Radio Network. “We’re excited about having them as part of the team not only this year but in the future. We really have a lot of respect for both of those guys.”

It wouldn’t be surprising to see both players get an additional year or two added to their current contracts.

• The Steelers have $18 million in salary cap space, and they still have a couple of holes to fill, most notably at wide receiver.

The Steelers have George Pickens, third-round draft pick Roman Wilson and a bunch of veteran players who profile better as No. 4 or 5 receivers.

Now, they do have a bunch of those players, so there’s a chance one of them steps forward. But hoping that happens isn’t a good plan.

Houston’s Robert Woods should be available via trade. The same goes for the Giants’ Darius Slayton. So should Tennessee’s Treylon Burks.

Plenty of Steelers fans have focused on acquiring a pie-in-the-sky player such as San Francisco’s Brandon Aiyuk or Seattle’s D.K. Metcalf.

But acquiring a player such as Woods, Slayton or Burks would make more sense.

And there’s still plenty of time for moves such as that to happen.

• The Pirates are hovering around the fringes of a playoff spot one quarter of the way through the 2024 season. Imagine where they’d be if they actually hit the ball a little more consistently.

Dale Lolley hosts The Drive on Steelers Nation Radio and writes a Sunday column for the Observer-Reporter.