Summer series: Pittsburgh Steelers

By: Josh Frey-Sam

The Pittsburgh Steelers haven’t won a playoff game since 2017.

Amazingly, it’s the longest drought in the modern era for one of the NFL’s oldest franchises.

All signs point to this season being the Steelers’ best chance to snap that streak.

How we arrived at this point is fascinating and reminiscent of a video game, with all the notable veteran free agent acquisitions this team made in the off-season.

It’s equated to the oldest roster in the NFL, and one with plenty of intrigue as it attempts to keep pace with the juggernauts of the AFC.

“It feels like there’s a ‘One last hurrah,’” said beat writer Nick Farabaugh.

Welcome to the Back Bacon Brief summer series, where I talk to a local media member from all 32 NFL teams to get an all-encompassing preview about each club heading into the 2025-26 season.

Today, we look at the Pittsburgh Steelers, and I spoke with beat writer Nick Farabaugh(@FarabaughFB on X) to find out everything going on in Steel City.

You can listen to the full interview here.

Steelers’ 2025 offseason

The Steelers were at a crossroads entering the off-season: look toward the future by undergoing a multi-year re-tool to chase a higher ceiling, or truly commit to a playoff run with their existing, aging core.

It was easy to understand which direction they would be going in upon learning that they were interested in 41-year-old Aaron Rodgers.

“This is a year that they’re going to try and crack that (playoff drought),” said Farabuagh. “Are they Super Bowl contenders? I don’t really buy them as one. Can they win a playoff game or two and at least try to build something for the future? I think so.”

While the Steelers are all in for 2025, this is a team with a lot of question marks beyond this year.

They still need to find a quarterback to usher in a new era. There’s a faint hope that rookie sixth-round draft pick Will Howard could be that guy, but it appears that even the Steelers believe the future face of their franchise is still in college.

“They have stockpiled compensatory picks in the 2026 draft. They stockpiled a lot of draft capital over the next two drafts, in what I believe is in preparation for a potential trade-up next year to go and get somebody. So I do think there is an eye toward the future in this organization…” Farabaugh said.

Staying with 2025, this offence, which Farabaugh called the “problem child” of the franchise since Ben Roethlisberger’s late years, should be the best fans have seen in many seasons.

There simply hasn’t been enough firepower for the Steelers to keep up, but they have some pieces to warrant some excitement.

Wide receiver DK Metcalf is the most notable weapon and should be a target hog in this offence. Tight end Jonnu Smith was recently acquired to form an intriguing duo with Pat Friermuth. They also drafted running back Kaleb Johnson to make a nice 1-2 punch with Jaylen Warren.

The interesting part to watch will be how offensive coordinator Arthur Smith uses these weapons.

With Smith and Friermuth together, it’s easy to assume Pittsburgh will be a heavy personnel offence, but neither player is a particularly strong blocker, which can defeat the purpose of deploying 12 personnel. That could mean Darnell Washington gets more playing time.

“I think they’re going to see a lot of 12, 13 personnel, spread you out, condense you — you can do a lot of cool things with that, it’s just, does the run game hurt because of that, and if it does, I don’t think it’s worth the risk, because you can’t imagine 41-year-old Aaron Rodgers putting the team on his back anymore,” Farabaugh said.

“The fit makes sense, but there certainly is reasonable concern with this offence.”

I also believe the Steelers are still a receiver away from being complete, and Farabaugh agreed. I’ve previously floated Keenan Allen’s name as a potential fit. Farabaugh thinks Gabe Davis is a guy who would complement their existing personnel at an inexpensive cost.

It’s equally possible the Steelers believe their WR2 is already in the building. 

Farabaugh said second-year receiver Roman Wilson — who missed almost all of 2024 due to injuries — is off to a strong start in 2025, and pegged him as one of the guys to watch in training camp, especially if the Steelers are done adding. 

“He’s kind of your big unknown,” Farabaugh said. “He was their third-round draft pick in the 2024 class, and he has been a guy who’s flashed all offseason.

“He’s explosive. He’s athletic. He’s tough. So when you’re looking at one of the questions of this team, which I think is their wide receiver room, Wilson’s a guy that could potentially step up and be that answer.”

There are less questions on defence. Pittsburgh will field the highest-paid defence in the league this season, and Farabaugh suggested the floor for this group is a top-five unit.

They brought on Darius Slay in free agency and traded for Jalen Ramsey to form a rock-solid trio of man-to-man cover corners with Joey Porter Jr.

Ramsey was an important addition, and the ripple effects he and Slay will have could be significant on a defence that was lacking creativity last season.

“That was one of the issues last year, is they were so vanilla (on defence) that teams could just sit back and kind of dice them apart. Ramsey is going to allow them to do a lot of things on the backend. He’s a bigger guy that they can slot in the slot… I think that’s where he’s going to be for a lot of this,” he said.

“I think the Steelers are really going to be really heavily focused on man-to-man, blitzes, moving around their fronts, disguising coverages on the backend… Ramsey is going to allow them to do that.”

My fantasy-related question to Nick was about the backfield.

Johnson is the better and more explosive runner, but Warren is a reliable veteran who does a lot of things that help his team win in real life.

“Warren is so good at things that are important to playing time: pass-pro, receiving — he’s got that part of his game down. As far as passing situations, he far exceeds Kaleb Johnson,” Farabaugh said, adding Johnson was hardly used as a receiving option at Iowa.

Warren will carry stand-alone value this season. He’s too reliable not to. How long that will last relies on Johnson’s development.

“(Johnson) will take a lot of early-down work, but how quickly can he come along in pass-pro and as a receiver? I’ll say this: I saw really encouraging signs in the spring. I thought he had soft hands, he catches the ball away from his frame, he can run more routes than I thought he could… so there were positives,” Farabaugh said.

“The pass-pro, he's working relentlessly at, that's like his big project, and he's just dove head first into it and trying to kind of fix that,” he added.

“I do think when you look at it early in the year, I think we're going to see more Jaylen Warren, and I think by the end of the year, I think it's probably going to swing more towards Kaleb Johnson.”

Farabaugh sided with over 8.5 wins for the Steelers this season, and I would lean in that direction, as well.

Thanks for reading and, as always, have a great day.

Josh