After the NFL schedule released Wednesday, we now know when the Steelers will face their opponents during the NFL's first ever 17-game season which they have the toughest strength of schedule.
Cam Heyward and Joe Haden made it clear after the schedule was released that they weren't concerned about any strength of schedule and are focused on themselves.
Tuesday, before the schedule released, JuJu Smith-Schuster went on the Adam Schefter Podcast and commented about the Steelers' upcoming schedule. But he wasn't concerned as much with any of the Steelers' opponents as he was about the impact of an extra game on the season.
"I'm not really a fan of it," Smith-Schuster said when asked about playing a 17-game season. "I'm young, I'm 24 years old, but still adding another game puts a toll on your body. I can't really imagine going from planning my career to play 10-12 years but instead now I'm playing for eight years because there's an extra game on the line."
Smith-Schuster is still just 24 years before his fifth NFL season. Outside of Ben Roethlisberger and David DeCastro, none of the offensive players on the roster are close to his 46 starts for the team.
That has given Smith-Schuster the chance to have a different perspective to their upcoming season.
"It comes down to the point where for us to make the playoffs we might need to not let our starters play," Smith-Schuster said. "I just thought about how it was hard for us to get through 17 weeks, and now we have to do 18 weeks? That's going to be tough."
Smith-Schuster has seen injuries throw a wrench in the Steelers plans several times. In 2017, Ryan Shazier's paralyzing injury took the defense's biggest playmaker away. In 2019, Roethlisberger and Mason Rudolph went down and the team had to lean on Devlin Hodges, and in 2020 was missing Bud Dupree, Devin Bush, Joe Haden, Zach Banner, and Alex Highsmith in their playoff loss to the Browns.
It's reasonable to be worried about attrition for all teams, and it'll be something to watch in 2021.