Things Could Get Extremely Ugly For The Pittsburgh Steelers Against The Tampa Bay Buccaneers On Sunday

The 2022 NFL season has already been one to forget for the Pittsburgh Steelers and their fans. Pittsburgh is 1-4 and sits at the bottom of the AFC North division. Reigning NFL Defensive Player of the Year remains out after suffering a torn pec in Week 1, and Pittsburgh is coming off an embarrassing 38-3 loss to the Buffalo Bills.

Surely it can’t get worse, right? Wrong.

The schedule doesn’t get any easy for the Steelers in Week 6. Instead, they take on Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And they’ll have to do without three starters in the defensive backfield.

The Pittsburgh Steelers Will Be Heavily Depleted Against The Buccaneers

The Steelers announced Friday that they will be without starting cornerbacks Cameron Sutton (hamstring) and Ahkello Witherspoon (hamstring as well star safety Minkah Fitzpatrick (knee). As if that weren’t bad enough, backup corner Levi Wallace is also out with a concussion.

That means a defense that’s giving up an average of 30.3 points per game over the last three weeks will be severely depleted against a team with Tom Brady, Mike Evans and Chris Godwin at its disposal.

But that’s not all!

On the other side of the ball, rookie quarterback Kenny Pickett will make his second career start for Pittsburgh. Pickett will have to do so without one of his top targets as well. Steelers’ tight end Pat Freiermuth is listed as out after suffering a concussion a week ago.

The Buccaneers have held four of their first five opponents under 20 points.

Needless to stay, Steelers fans are not particularly optimistic about their chances against Tampa Bay.

There’s no time like the present for Pittsburgh sports fans to pretend to care about hockey for the next eight months. It’s a year tradition anyway. But for those brave enough to keep watching this Steelers team, more power to you.