Behind the Steel Curtain
What’s the toughest game on the Steelers’ schedule in 2025?
The 2025 NFL season schedule is here, and if you’re not scrambling to buy tickets, you’re probably looking at the upcoming matchups wondering which will be the easiest and hardest for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
If that’s the case, you’ve come to the right place. I’ve been tasked with putting together a ranking of the Steelers’ 2025 regular season games from easiest to hardest — this exercise is for fun, and I’d urge you to create your own in the comments below. I’ve tried my best, but it’s an inexact science and every year teams surprise us by being much better (or worse!) than preseason expectations.
With the caveats out of the way, let’s get to the rankings:
This is an obvious pick. The Steelers should be well-rested coming off an early-season, Week 5 bye, and Pittsburgh hasn’t lost a regular season home game against Cleveland since 2003. Plus, the Browns look to be in another year of quarterback purgatory.
The Steelers, of course, are also in quarterback purgatory, making even the “easier” games on their schedule far from a guarantee. The Patriots seem to have a franchise quarterback in Drake Maye, and paired with a good recent draft, the future is bright in New England. But this is also a team that went 4-13 last season. By Week 3, I don’t think they’ll have everything figured out just yet.
The Jets were 5-12 last season, and with Justin Fields replacing Aaron Rodgers at quarterback, can we really expect a sizable leap? Fields will have talented weapons around him and his offensive line looks good on paper. New head coach Aaron Glenn will be in charge of a talented defense. But the Steelers have much harder games scheduled in 2025.
Under Mike McDaniel, the Dolphins have come close to the upper tier of AFC teams in the past, but they seem to be headed in the wrong direction following a middling 2024. Plus, two general NFL truths seem to be in play here: Mike Tomlin almost always wins on Monday Night Football, and the Dolphins don’t play well in the cold. Playing in Pittsburgh, the Steelers have a clear edge in this game, even if the matchup falls in a difficult stretch of the team’s schedule.
This Browns game ranks a bit higher on the list for difficulty just because of the location. Cleveland does not look like it will be a good football team for yet another season in 2025, but the Browns have won their last three home games against the...
