The Pittsburgh Steelers are preparing for the 2024 regular season, but before the real games begin, the team has to head to training camp back at Saint Vincent College in order to fine tune their skills. As we here at SCN prepare you for the start of camp, we give you a series called “30 Scenarios in 30 Days” which gives you a Steelers scenario every day leading up to the start of camp.

It is simple how it works. We provide you the scenario, reasons why it will or won’t happen, and then our prediction for what we think will take place.

Let’s get to the scenario…

Scenario: The Steelers will have a winning record at home in 2024

Why it will happen: A good recipe for an NFL team to have a successful season is to win all their home games and split their games on the road. Back when it was a 16-game season, this would put a team at 12–4. While winning all your home games is a tall task, winning most of them is expected if a team is a playoff contender.

Even though they haven’t had recent success in the postseason, the Steelers are annually playoff contenders. This is why the last time the Steelers had a losing record at home was the 1999 season where they went 2–6 and finished the year 6–10. To put this in perspective, this season was where the Steelers finished fourth place out of six teams in the AFC Central division, three years before the formation of the AFC North.

Since we are not talking strictly about losing records, the Steelers have gone .500 at home only three times since that 1999 losing season. Those three seasons, where the Steelers finished 4–4 in Pittsburgh, 2000, 2003, and 2022. So not having a winning record at home for the Steelers is a rarity.

Why it won’t happen: Because the Steelers don’t have the benefit of an additional home game in 2024, they can’t squeak by with a winning record like last season where they went 5–4 at home. The Steelers are much more in line to where they could finish 4–4 like they did the previous season. Yes, there is a long history of the Steelers having a great home record. But when looking at the specific years stated in the previous section, notice the Steelers went 4–4 in 2003 and didn’t do so again at home until 2022. I don’t find it ironic that these two years acted as bookends of Ben Roethberger‘s career. So taking Roethberger out of the equation, the Steelers are a combined 9–8 at home since his retirement and finished at .500 or worse in three of the five seasons before Roethlisberger was drafted.

So if the quarterback is a big factor, it’s important to note that Russell Wilson has not had a winning record at home, either in Denver or Seattle, in the last three seasons. The last two years he’s been .500 at home where in 2021 he was 2–4 in Seattle. In all, Wilson has only had winning records at home in two of his last seven seasons after starting his NFL career with five straight years of winning records at home.

Because of this, and looking at the Steelers schedule in a very difficult AFC North, finishing the season 4–4 at home would not be a huge surprise.

Prediction: This one isn’t as easy as it might look on the surface. Looking at the Steelers first half of the season, their four home games are a 1 PM game against the Los Angeles Chargers as their home opener and three prime time games against the Cowboys, Jets, and Giants. Those games look pretty promising. But in the second half of the season the Steelers have their three AFC North matchups as well as a game against the defending Super Bowl Champion Kansas City Chiefs on Christmas Day. If the Steelers dropped one of their first four home games, it could put both their home record and their season in trouble.

What puts me over the top is the Steelers success against their division, particularly at home. In 22 years of the AFC North being a division, the Steelers have gone 3–0 at home 10 times, 2–1 at home seven times, and 1–2 at home five times. The Steelers have never been swept at home in the division and are much more likely to win at least two games. If they can pull off at least two wins at home in the AFC North in 2024, I believe the Steelers will reach at least five wins in home games this season with the potential for more.

Miss a scenario? You can see the full list of scenarios below, and be sure to stay tuned to SCN for the latest news and notes surrounding the Steelers as they prepare for training camp.

Day 13: Najee Harris And Jaylen Warren Will Both Top 1k Yards Again

Day 12: The Steelers will have a kickoff return in 2024

Day 11: The Steelers Will Have A Winning AFC North Record, Again

Day 10: Patrick Queen Will Make The Pro Bowl Again In 2024

Day 9: The Steelers Will Have A Top 10 Rush Defense

Day 8: The Steelers Will Rush For More Than 2500 Yards In 2024

Day 7: T.J. Watt Will Break The Single-Season Sack Record

Day 6: George Pickens Will Have Double-Digit Receiving TDs

Day 5: Russell Wilson Will Start All 17 Steelers Games In 2024

Day 4: The Steelers Defense Will Have More Takeaways This Season

Day 3: The Steelers Will Top Their 2023 Sack Total

Day 2: The Steelers Offense Will Have More Turnovers This Season

Day 1: The Steelers Will Go Above And Beyond Their Win-Loss Prediction In 2024