It was a rather busy offseason for the Pittsburgh Steelers, with fresh faces appearing in some positions on the roster. But they’re not really improving. Despite keeping many of the same players, they won 10 games last year, but with the rich Eisenshaw Chris Brockman is not encouraged by the team’s roster heading into 2025. On Wednesday, Brockman included them His “helpless rankings” made them the 28th best team in the league.
“[No.] 28 is the Steelers,” Brockman said. “They’re not good, they’re pretty bad. And they have to be really bad. They have to bottom out and try again.”
It’s not necessarily new to analysts being pessimistic about the Steelers over the summer. Usually they appear in the year without any major improvements and receive low expectations. Pittsburgh usually exceeds these expectations, and 2024 is a good example. There weren’t many people out there who could enter the team’s season. Things fell apart in the end, but this year’s 10-3 start was impressive.
However, expectations for this year seem more extreme than most people. The Steelers are even worse than this offseason 28 as they were recently listed as No. 30 in the Fox Sports power rankings. Looking at the Steelers roster at this point, it’s fair to be pessimistic.
The biggest problem is the quarterback position. This remains a big question mark until Aaron Rodgers makes a decision. The Steelers feel like his best place, as they always have. However, he hasn’t given them any favors by dragging this for a long time. At this point, some are beginning to question whether Rogers is even the Steelers’ answer.
Speaking to Brockman, Andrew Siciliano, who fills Eisen’s host, believes Howard should be the answer, if not Rogers.
“If it wasn’t Aaron, it should be Howard,” Siciliano said.
Howard could take some meaningful snaps in 2025, especially if Rogers doesn’t sign. However, it seems highly unlikely that he will start the season. At the sixth quarterback, he rarely sees the field in a rookie year. As Mason Rudolph is familiar with the franchise, he stepped into the role and forbids unfortunate injuries.
Brockman pointed out that the Steelers should be bad for their own good. It has been revealed that they are using the 2026 NFL Draft as their chance to draft that quarterback. If Howard started just to imagine, would that be the worst thing in the world?
If things go well, that’s a great value on the sixth pick. If they don’t work, and it’s certainly likely, the Steelers had the chance to at least see what they already had in their quarterback room. Also, next year there will be a high draft pick and it will be difficult to find a quarterback.
Either way, the Steelers roster doesn’t appreciate this offseason. Most of the reasons are the lack of quarterbacks. Until there is a solution, it will be difficult for analysts like Brockman to begin to feel more optimistic about Pittsburgh.
