Behind the Steel Curtain
It’s the NFL offseason, which corresponds with list season as there’s not much else to talk about between OTAs and training camp.
It’s time to revisit an annual exercise on BTSC: ranking the Steelers’ position groups before the season. To be clear, this is a ranking of how I see the groups as they stand right now; upside was taken into account a little bit, but the understanding is that this list will reorder as the team evolves in-season.
Today, we’ll look at the offense:
Quarterback ranking the lowest is a reflection on a past-his-prime Aaron Rodgers, sure, but also that every other offensive position group is looking rather strong entering 2026. Rodgers wasn’t bad by any means in 2025, but the quarterback position remains the main reason why the Steelers still aren’t taken that seriously as contenders.
Rodgers was likely the best available starting quarterback option for the Steelers over the offseason, and his arm and veteran savvy were key ingredients in some of Pittsburgh’s most hard-fought wins last year. Still, his lack of pushing the ball downfield and diminishing mobility keep him firmly out of the upper tier of NFL quarterbacks.
Behind Rodgers, young backups Drew Allar and Will Howard remain intriguing options at best — neither have as much as taken a snap in the preseason at this point in their respective careers.
The offensive line was a tough position group to rank, because based on upside this group could easily emerge as one of the best in the entire league over the next few seasons. But for now? Questions remain regarding how hot of a start they’ll get off to.
Troy Fautanu, Mason McCormick, and Zach Frazier are a reliable young core, but two of those players are likely to make a position change ahead of the new season. The other starting spots are up in the air, and will be taken up by some combination of Dylan Cook, Spencer Anderson, Brock Hoffman, Max Iheanachor, and maybe even the recovering Broderick Jones. Upside and depth are reasons to be excited. Inexperience and developing chemistry remain concerns.
Still, the returning players in this unit will be looking to build off what was a promising foundation in 2025. They were undoubtedly helped by the league’s fastest time to throw, but still allowed the lowest pressure rate in the NFL by a wide margin. The run game will likely be where new offensive line coach James Campen hopes to take the biggest strides: While not a tell-all stat, the Steelers ranked a lowly 28th in the league when it came to yards before contact in 2025.
The Steelers’ wide receiver room is just middle-of-the-road, but even that is a massive improvement over where it’s been in recent seasons. DK Metcalf is a low-end WR1, but still a freak athlete who can beat defenses deep and is always a threat to take a short pass to the house. Michael...
