May 9, 2020 5 min read

The Steelers’ newly released schedule is one of the easiest in the NFL, based on 2019 records.

Of course, we know that last year’s records mean nothing when it comes to 2020. Some teams get better. Others get worse. Nobody stays the same.

But in the case of the Steelers, they’re the only team in the AFC getting a Super Bowl-winning quarterback back onto the field. Couple that with what should be a top-five defensive unit and the Steelers have the look of a team capable of winning 10 or 11 games based on that schedule. Maybe more with a little good luck.

Will that be enough to catch Baltimore?

We’ll see.

The Ravens aren’t winning 14 games again in 2020. But they shouldn’t win less than 11 or 12, assuming reigning league-MVP Lamar Jackson stays healthy. That’s their floor.

Some of the Steelers’ more difficult games come at Heinz Field. We knew that already. But they set up well based on when they’re being played.

For example, playing the Indianapolis Colts, an indoor team with an aging quarterback in Philip Rivers, who has played his whole life in good weather, at Heinz Field in December? That’s a very good time to play them.

Or how about the second meeting with the Ravens being a prime-time game on Thanksgiving? Think the Steelers will have an advantage in that game, considering Baltimore will be coming off a short week having played the Tennessee Titans, the team that manhandled them in the playoffs last season?

And the travel? It’s nonexistent. The Steelers make one trip west of the Mississippi River and that comes after their bye week when they visit Dallas.

With the playoffs expanding to seven teams from each conference in 2020, it will be a crime if the Steelers aren’t one of them. What they do from there is up to them.

But know that with Tom Brady now out of the AFC, Ben Roethlisberger’s 13 career playoff wins are as many as the rest of the quarterbacks in the AFC combined.

The Steelers have an advantage most teams just don’t. There isn’t a quarterback in the AFC East who has won a playoff game. It’s the same for the AFC North, with the notable exception of Roethlisberger.

• The NFL finally released its schedule more than a month after it typically would have been announced.

And yet there were people grousing about the fact the league was moving forward with its 16-game regular season and full preseason schedule.

Apparently, the league is supposed to wait until, say mid-July, to release the schedule because we don’t know what’s going to happen later this year with major sporting events.

Apparently, instead of putting out the schedule and then adjusting off of that, based on the knowledge we’ll have three or four months from now, the NFL should sit on its hands and wait.

Of course, much of the complaining regarding the release of the schedule came from the same people who complained the league was holding its draft a couple of weeks ago. We should all just be sitting in our homes waiting for the world to end.

Plans have to be made for when the country reopens. Those plans can then be changed later.

• We live in a time when our personal freedoms are being stepped on in a big way by government in the name of doing what is supposedly best for the greater good.

Our elected officials have to make tough decisions. Some have been necessary. Others are highly questionable.

You can count a recommendation made this week by an Advisory Sub-Committee to the city of Washington in the latter. The sub-committee has recommended to the city that it shut down all youth baseball and softball at Washington Park this summer in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

This is happening despite the fact the area is to begin easing restrictions in the yellow phase next Friday, with the prospect of completely reopening at some point in the coming weeks.

But children, who have already been robbed of the social aspect of attending school, aren’t going to be permitted to participate in baseball or softball if they live in the greater Washington area. Meanwhile, other leagues in the area are making plans to open and play this year when the OK is given.

Under the plan released this week, Washington is closing all events at the park, including the pool, pavilions, car shows and fireworks. And kids won’t be permitted to play baseball or softball.

Never mind that Washington Youth Baseball and TWIST pay thousands of dollars each year to lease the fields in the park from the city. They perform and pay for all of the upkeep on those fields. Never mind that hundreds of families will be affected.

It’s far better, apparently, for children to sit around and do nothing as opposed to taking part in a physical activity. Outdoors. In the sun.

The farmer’s market off of which the city makes money? Oh, it can still be held.

Kids playing sports? Nope.

If the city decides to run with this recommendation, I would expect lawsuits to follow. Here’s hoping more sensible heads prevail.

Dale Lolley covers the Steelers for DKPittsburghSports.com and writes a Sunday column for the Observer-Reporter.