Pittsburgh Steelers seem all-in on 2025, but should they be?

On the latest episode of Football 301, Yahoo Sports’ Charles McDonald is joined by Diante Lee & Steven Ruiz of The Ringer to talk about the 2025 Pittsburgh Steelers offseason. With the notable addition of Aaron Rodgers and splashy trades for both Jalen Ramsey & DK Metcalf, the Pittsburgh front office is giving every indication that they are pushing their chips all-in for a Super Bowl run in 2025…but should they be? Charles, Diante & Steven argue that the Steelers roster is all flash, no substance. If you’re fighting tooth and nail to be the AFC North’s third best team, are your Super Bowl aspirations really that legitimate to begin with?

Hear the full conversation on “Football 301” – and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.

Video Transcript

That’s the problem.

I don’t know if, does Tomlin think this is all in, but like, it doesn’t even matter because the reporters around Pittsburgh seem to think that they’re all in, and like everyone’s talking like they’re all in.

Like this team is not ready to compete.

So if the expectation is all in, like, we could already say this is gonna be a failure from the start because they’re not gonna make the AFC Championship.

No, no, no.

I, I, I, I feel like this could be.

One of, like, maybe the Steeler Steelers teams of like the last couple years, like in that time frame where they’ve been trying to get a quarterback post-Ben Roethlisberger, but they’ve been too good to actually get the quarterback post-Ben Roethlisberger, even though they’re not actually a good football team, like, when you look, OK, ’cause when you look at their stats, I was running, I was running through their their page on Trued yesterday.

I was like, how the hell did this team win 10 or 11 games?

And you look at the year before that, how the hell did this team win 10 or 11 games, and it’s not even like the defense is just straight out stalwart, you know, like they have their moments where, where they’re not good, but then the offense isn’t good.

And then you look at the final score, it’s like 19 to 16, and no one had a good time at the end of the game.

And I feel like this could be like the worst version of that because they do have a little bit more talent on offense.

I do think getting D.K.

Metcalf helps.

We’ll see how much it matters, like just swapping D.K.

for George, kind of one for one.

If the offensive line is healthy, that should be a pretty good unit.

Uh, but man, I just, I just don’t see how they don’t end up playing just rock football that we all hate watching every single week, but that’s what they do.

I don’t know how much you remember of, um, like the Rex Ryan era Jets, but like this feels so much like those 2009, 2010 teams where you’ve got names you know, and a defensive system that I guess is good enough to just, like you said, rock fight and we’ll sit on the ball on offense and hope that our quarterback doesn’t turn the ball over.

And we’re just not in that context of the league anymore, where that’s gonna be good enough to get you to a conference championship.

I can’t see them being any better by odds or just by play, Um, than being the third-best team in the division.

And if you’re the third-best team in the AFC North, then you are basically eliminated from being a serious team.

If you can’t be better than Cincinnati, which I don’t think they are, that’s kind of my barometer for where you are as a contender in that conference.

It’s going to be tough, and they don’t have an easy schedule either.

That’s the other part of it: there aren’t very many gimmes.

So if there’s anything wrong with Aaron Rodgers, if there’s any health issues with Darius Slay, or with Jalen Ramsey, if this offense takes any time to kind of find its footing, we could easily look up and this can be even more of a disaster season than I think any of us would pitch as the worst-case scenario right now.

Pittsburgh Steelers seem all-in on 2025, but should they be?

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