{"id":745001,"date":"2026-02-11T15:09:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T15:09:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/745001\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T15:09:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T15:09:16","slug":"here-we-go-again-espn-analyst-predicts-losing-season-for-steelers-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/745001\/","title":{"rendered":"Here We Go (Again): ESPN Analyst Predicts Losing Season For Steelers In 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s that time of year again. With the NFL offseason upon us, it\u2019s time to make needless predictions for next season without the NFL Draft, free agency, or any offseason workouts underway. And ESPN\u2019s Dan Graziano came out with the most predictable<\/a> take of all \u2014 the Pittsburgh Steelers will miss the playoffs in 2026.<\/p>\n

Every offseason, a host of analysts and media personalities come out with their big, bold prediction that the Steelers, who haven\u2019t had a losing season since 2003, will have a losing season the upcoming year. Of course, this is now a Steelers team that doesn\u2019t have Mike Tomlin at the helm and has a question mark at quarterback to go along with an aging core. It\u2019s really not that hard to see the Steelers having a losing season in 2026, yet, it hasn\u2019t happened in so long it\u2019s worthy of a \u201cbig prediction.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Steelers will have their first losing season since 2003,\u201d Graziano wrote. \u201cFor a few years now, this roster has needed a more extensive rebuild than the team has been willing to undergo. For all the issues Steelers fans had with Mike Tomlin by the end of his tenure, there\u2019s a good chance 2026 shows that he was actually holding things together in Pittsburgh.\u201d<\/p>\n

My only gripe with this take is that we have no idea how the offseason is going to go. We\u2019re three days removed from the Super Bowl. There\u2019s still so much roster building to undergo that making predictions for what\u2019s going to happen next season is rather fruitless. Yes, as it stands right now, the Steelers\u2019 roster is shaky and losing Tomlin hurts. But Mike McCarthy has won recently, and with a good enough roster, he could certainly coach the Steelers to a winning season.<\/p>\n

But we don\u2019t know what that roster is going to be. Will Kenneth Gainwell stay or leave in free agency? Will the Steelers make a big splash, potentially signing a Malik Willis<\/a> or adding someone like Rico Dowdle?<\/a> Could they potentially make an even bigger splash? We don\u2019t know! Maybe the Steelers trade up in the draft for a receiver or, dare I say, a quarterback. There\u2019s too much unknown to predict that the team will have a losing season. Yes, they lost Tomlin, who never had a losing season. But it feels way too easy to say that because Tomlin\u2019s gone, the Steelers will be below .500.<\/p>\n

And even with Tomlin the last few years, it was trendy to pick the Steelers to underachieve and finish below .500. But without fail, they found themselves getting their butt kicked in the Wild Card Round instead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s that time of year again. With the NFL offseason upon us, it\u2019s time to make needless predictions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":722789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[4153,12,7,7866,6,520,57,2360,426],"class_list":{"0":"post-745001","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-dan-graziano","9":"tag-espn","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-mike-mccarthy","12":"tag-nfl","13":"tag-pittsburgh","14":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","15":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","16":"tag-steelers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116052634437106456","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=745001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/722789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=745001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=745001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=745001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}