The Pittsburgh Steelers met a sad mean in the 2024-25 season. The Steelers were perfectly typecast average, just like every other year. With a 10-3 record in early December, fans’ dreams of a deep playoff run, or even a lone playoff victory, felt a little more real. But a glance at the schedule in early August made it clear that the second half of the Steelers’ schedule was one of the toughest ever devised.
In the first half of the season, the Steelers sat on top of the AFC North with a 7-2 record. A home playoff game for the first time since 2020 looked likely. However, only two of those wins came against opponents who would make the playoffs in the Broncos and Chargers — not exactly the training the Steelers needed for the latter stretch of games.
The back half included all six games against AFC North opponents, with the Kansas City Chiefs on Christmas Day and the Philadelphia Eagles thrown in for good measure. With the Hard Knocks camera crew in the building, the Steelers would finish 3-5, including four straight losses to end the season.
Everything was peachy just a month ago. Head coach Mike Tomlin was in the Coach of the Year race, linebacker T.J. Watt was the favorite to win Defensive Player of the Year, and despite having a down year by his standards, placekicker Chris Boswell was on track to break the record for most field goal makes in an NFL season.
But when the Steelers ended their season with fourstraight losses, all league-wide respect and honors consideration disappeared. Not only will Tomlin not win Coach of the Year, but fans are increasingly unsure if Tomlin is the correct coach for the future.
On top of that, Watt likely will not win his second Defensive Player of the Year award, and Boswell finished with only 41 field goal makes.
In Week 18, the Steelers no longer controlled their once-held destiny of hosting a playoff game. When the Ravens defeated the Browns less than an hour before the Steelers kicked off against the Bengals, the Steelers were no longer playing for homefield advantage but rather playing to avoid the Ravens in round one. Despite what was on the line, the Steelers couldn’t break their losing streak and had to travel to their archrival’s stadium in the wild card round for their ultimate demise.
It’s no surprise the Steelers were shut out in the first half of their Wild Card game. Pittsburgh has not scored a single point in the first quarter of their last five playoff games. Including this season’s loss, the Steelers have lost those first quarters 63-0. Even when given a second quarter, the Steelers’ only points came with a Mason Rudolph to Diontae Johnson touchdown against the Bills last season and a Watt scoop-and-score against the Chiefs in 2022. Of course, they still lost all five of those games.
It’s a lot of doom and gloom, even for a city with weather as gray as Pittsburgh, and it’s difficult to picture what the Steelers are building. All three quarterbacks on the active roster are free agents.
The season’s end makes it hard to picture Russell Wilson getting any significant contract from the Steelers. In the few days the Steelers have had for reflection, it appears that Justin Fields is much more likely to earn a new deal, considering his younger age and possible potential.
The big decision the Steelers must make is whether running back Najee Harris, a former first-round pick, is worth a new contract. There are some promising pieces the Steelers will likely keep. Wide receiver George Pickens led the team with 900 receiving yards in 14 games. Tight end Pat Freiermuth caught a team-high 65 receptions and seven touchdowns on only 78 targets. Wide receiver Calvin Austin III came in third with 548 yards but was a big-play machine as he only caught 36 balls. But the passing game rarely stays the focus for the Steelers.
The Steelers have a reputation as a team that wants to run the ball to control the clock and play great defense — but running the ball is also not one of the team’s strengths, despite their heavy focus on it. The Steelers averaged the sixth-most rushing attempts per game with 30.2 but ranked 25th in yards per rush attempt, with 4.0.
The six highest-paid players play defense. The only other team with even their two highest-paid players on defense is the Las Vegas Raiders, who won four games this season.
So the defense should be great, right?
After 18 weeks, the dust has settled, and the Steelers’ defense was arguably slightly above average at best. The Steelers ranked 15th in yards allowed per game, 16th in opponent time of possession and allowed the eight least points per game. A persisting issue the team faced was defending the sticks on fourth down — they allowed the fourth-highest rate of fourth down conversions.
Every playoff game, the black and gold suit up for what seems like Groundhog Day. So what needs to change?
According to Gerry Dulac of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Tomlin will remain the head coach. Therefore, the next obvious positions to examine are offensive and defensive coordinators and the quarterback. Hopefully, the changes don’t come in many new defensive players, considering the investment on that side of the ball.
Several teams, including the Ravens, Eagles and Packers, saw big improvements from acquiring a top-tier running back in Derrick Henry, Saquon Barkley and Josh Jacobs, respectively. If the Steelers elect not to resign Harris, they can possibly put themselves in the same position.
Who the Steelers should draft, hire, fire or acquire will stand as a hot-button issue until next season — let’s hope it’s one where they finally act out a new script.