Steelers Now
PITTSBURGH — There was a lot that went wrong for the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 2025 season that came to an abrupt end on home turf on Monday night in a 30-6 beat-down at the hands of the Houston Texans.
Many, many things.
The Steelers started the season with Darius Slay and Juan Thornhill as starting members of their secondary. They later cut both of them. They brought in Slay and Jalen Ramsey to play cornerback, thinking they could play man-to-man defense against some of the best offenses in the league. Special teamer James Pierre turned out to be their second-best cornerback. Ramsey ended up being an OK safety.
They got rid of George Pickens because they didn’t want his combustible personality around anymore, and then replaced him with DK Metcalf, who got himself suspended for the two most important games of the regular season for pushing a fan during a game.
Someone at the team facility literally stabbed their highest-paid player in the lung, causing him to miss three crucial games in December.
But of all of the things that went wrong for the Steelers this season, nothing went worse than the acquisition of tight end Jonnu Smith.
Smith came over to the Steelers as part of the same trade as Ramsey. The Steelers sought Ramsey, who was being traded by the Dolphins, but didn’t want to pay in draft picks, so they made the trade work by sending safety Minkah Fitzpatrick to Miami, and getting Smith back to make the value work.
The Steelers spent most of their offseason looking for receiving options to play alongside Metcalf, and weren’t in love with any of the options, going into the season without a bona fide wide receiver No. 2 for the second straight year.
But Smith was coming off an 884-yard season with the Miami Dolphins. Never much of a blocker, it looked like the Steelers might be able to pair him with Pat Freiermuth and use him as a pure receiving threat. Smith had extensive history with Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith, having played with him before with the Tennessee Titans and Atlanta Falcons, so it seemed reasonable to believe that Arthur Smith would be able to get the most out of him.
Instead, he got absolutely nothing. Jonnu Smith finished the regular season with 222 receiving yards — his smallest full-season contribution since he was a rookie in 2017, when he had 157 yards. That year, he was targeted 30 times. This season, he was targeted 54 times.
Smith finished the regular season with 4.1 yards per target. He was the worst tight end in the NFL in terms of yards per target. The second-worst, Noah Gray, Kansas City’s blocking tight end, was 4.8. Brock Wright, another blocker, for Detroit, was at 4.9.
Not only was he the least-productive tight end in the NFL this season, he was one of the least-productive tight ends in recent NFL history. His 4.1 yards per target is dead last among...
