The Steelers weren't anywhere close to being the favorites to win the Super Bowl when the season began. And, despite being 5-0 following their 38-7 win over the Browns last Sunday, they're still not the favorite to do so.
But those odds are getting better each week.
In fact, according to oddschecker.com, the Steelers have been the most popular bet to win the Super Bowl, with 26 percent of bets on who will win the Super Bowl going on Pittsburgh in the past seven days.
Why not? Even with their odds having gone from plus-$3,000 when the season opened to plus-$1,200 now, they're still a solid bet, as only the Chiefs, Ravens and Seahawks have better odds.
That's because the Steeler just might be the most complete team in the NFL.
Offense? The Steelers are averaging 31.2 points per game, placing them in the top five in the league in scoring. They've scored at least 26 points in each of their five games this season.
Defense? The Steelers are second in the NFL in points allowed at 18.8 per game and third in overall defense, allowing 285.2 yards per game.
The Steelers are the only team in the NFL in the top 5 in both of those categories. Not the Chiefs or Ravens, who haven't been quite as potent on offense as they have been in the past, or the Seahawks, who are scoring well, but rank in the bottom of the league in scoring defense.
If you look just beyond those stats, FootballOutsiders.com's DVOA rankings have the Steelers ninth in offensive efficiency, second in that same metric on defense -- behind only the Buccaneers -- and seventh in special teams, which are often the most forgotten units and the hardest to measure. The Saints are the only other team in the NFL with top-10 rankings in all three of those metrics.
"They are well-coached -- they're extremely well-coached. They're talented. They play well," said Titans head coach Mike Vrabel, whose team will put a 5-0 record of its own on the line when they host the Steelers Sunday at Nissan Stadium.
"It has been tough for people to run the football on them. We'll have to get to work. ... We'll have to block them. They're good on the edges and they're very good inside."
The Steelers are making that kind of impression on people around the league, especially in terms of controlling games with their defense.
The team's pass rush has been dynamic, aggressive and, most of all, productive. The front 5 of T.J. Watt, Stephon Tuitt, Tyson Alualu, Cameron Heyward and Bud Dupree has been the best unit in the league. Not best defensive front. Not best defensive unit. Best overall unit in the NFL.
You want production? They've gotten that. Dupree (5.0), Watt (4.5) and Tuitt (4.0) all rank in the top-10 in the league in sacks. Watt leads the NFL in pressures with 20, but Dupree, Tuitt and Heyward all have at least 10 this season, as well.
And they don't just help the Steelers' pass defense, which ranks 7th in the league, allowing 219.0 yards per game. Inside linebacker Vince Williams leads the NFL in tackles for a loss with 10. Watt is second with 9. Cornerback Mike Hilton, Heyward, Dupree, Tuitt and Alualu all have at least three. The run defense has been the league's second-stingiest, giving up 66.2 yards per game.
The Browns were the latest victim of that defense. Cleveland entered Sunday's game flying high, averaging 32 points per game during a four-game winning streak powered by the NFL's best rushing offense.
Cleveland struggled to get to 200 total yards of offense in the game. The Steelers only had 277 total yards, but did pretty much whatever they wanted to do against the Browns, scoring 31 offensive points and taking advantage of a defensive touchdown.
"They are a good team. We saw that," said Browns defensive end Myles Garrett of the Steelers.
"They were able to move the ball on us through the air and on the ground. They really had their pick of what they wanted. They outplayed us on defense and offense."
That has largely been the case in each of their games already this season. The offense and defense have played off of each other, making life pretty miserable for opponents.
Critics said earlier in the season that was because of the teams the Steelers had been playing. Pittsburgh's first four opponents have a combined 5-17-1 record. But the Browns had entered their game with the Steelers last Sunday on a hot streak.
The Steelers throttled them.
And that's been without Ben Roethlisberger playing at a level at which he is happy. The future Hall of Fame quarterback has been unhappy with his deep passing, so he spent extra time last week working on that during practice.
It paid off against the Browns as he connected on downfield throws to both James Washington and electrifying rookie Chase Claypool for big gains.
But while Roethlisberger hasn't been prolific throwing the ball -- the Steelers rank 24th in the NFL in passing yards per game at 221.2 -- he's been highly efficient. Through five games, he's thrown 11 touchdown passes with just one interception. It's the most efficient stretch of his career since he went seven games from Week 3 through 9 in 2014 throwing 21 touchdowns and just one interception during a seven-game streak in which the Steelers went 5-2.
And defenses are unable to key in on just one player, as Washington, Claypool, JuJu Smith-Schuster, Diontae Johnson and tight end Eric Ebron have all had their moments as the top receiving threat.
Roethlisberger also has helped the running game improve. The Steelers are averaging 136.8 yards per game on the ground this year after being 29th in the NFL at 90.4 yards per game in 2019.
"Everybody in the offseason worked hard to be prepared to run the ball, and then having a veteran quarterback like Ben being able to get us into the right checks, stuff like that," guard Matt Feiler said when asked about the dramatic improvement.
The bottom line is a team that can win a game in a variety of ways. The Steelers can totally dominate an opponent, as they did against the Browns, when everything is clicking, or they can win a shootout, as they had done the week before in a 38-29 win over the Eagles when the defense had an uncharacteristically bad day.
That, at least according to Mike Tomlin, is the definition of a complete football team.
"(A complete team is) a group that is capable of winning games in a lot of ways that has players capable of stepping up, so they are tough to draw a bead on from a balance standpoint, a team that also has a high floor," Tomlin said when I asked him that exact question on Tuesday. "You talk often about ceilings and what people are capable of from an outstanding standpoint, but there has to be a certain level of consistency and play. That’s displayed by a good, high floor in terms of the things you can expect from a performance standpoint. And lastly, a team that’s difficult to beat. By that, I mean a team that doesn’t beat themselves, and that is largely done through negativity that is created through penalties and things of that nature. You have to keep your penalty total down as well."
The Steelers have done all of those things in 2020 -- did we mention they're ninth in penalties against with 29? What that adds up to at season's end depends largely on continuing to replicate their success thus far.
That will start this week with a battle of unbeaten teams in Tennessee, the first of three-straight road games for the Steelers.
"This is a group that has an appetite for the big moment," Tomlin said of the Titans. "They’re capable of delivering it in the big moment. They complement their offense extremely well, and that way their offense does an awesome job of taking care of the ball. That in a nutshell is kind of our challenge this week. We respect it. We are playing them in their home venue. We’re humbled and excited to be in these five-star matchups."