Steelers Now
Plenty has gone wrong for the Pittsburgh Steelers over the first 12 weeks of the 2025 season, and even though the Steelers were gift-wrapped a golden opportunity to lock down the AFC North after injuries to Joe Burrow and Lamar Jackson, they’ve been unable to do so, falling into a first-place tie with the Ravens after Sunday’s loss to the Chicago Bears, and facing the toughest part of their schedule still to come.
The Steelers were not expected to be a strong contender coming into the season, so it should not come as a huge surprise that they’re 6-5 entering the stretch run of the season.
But the way the Steelers have gotten here has not been expected path, or the team’s plan and vision for the 2025 season.
Plenty has gone wrong, that given the circumstances, have ended up costing the Steelers what could have been an iron grip on the AFC North. What have those things been? I’ve picked five of the biggest offenders.
The Pittsburgh Steelers came into the 2025 season with a whole set of problems with the team’s offense that were obvious to just about anyone.
They have a 41-year-old starting quarterback, in Aaron Rodgers who was not particularly good in his last two healthy seasons, and was injured for all of one of the last three.
Rodgers has actually played better this season in Pittsburgh than his 2024 season with the New York Jets and 2022 season with the Green Bay Packers, but anyone hoping for a return to MVP form was always fooling themselves. This is about the best version of of Rodgers anyone could have expected to get, and the fact that he’s missed three halves of football over 12 weeks should not be particularly surprising, either, nor should the fact that the Steelers lost the first full game he missed.
The Steelers have also had an obvious dearth of talent at the wide receiver position, going back two seasons now, that has played out the way anyone should have expected it to: DK Metcalf faces a ton of double coverage, and the combination of Calvin Austin III and Roman Wilson have yet to make anyone pay for adopting that strategy.
The offensive line came into the season with two players with one season of starting experience at their current position, and two — both tackles — with none.
An old quarterback, a young offensive line and a lack of wide receivers is not a way to build a championship-caliber offense. That was obvious all offseason, and that unit’s inability to deliver championship-caliber football should come as no surprise.
In fact, the Steelers offense has played far ahead of realistic expectations, with that unit currently 11th in scoring offense.
That’s about as good as this unit could possible have been expected to be, but it still hasn’t been good enough to get the Steelers where they want to go as a team....
