Ask a Yinzer about their beloved Steelers this week, and you’d be forgiven if you came away from the experience believing the sky is falling. Sunday’s 31-17 loss to the Seahawks was both perplexing — thanks mostly to one bizarre and game-altering play involving the NFL’s kickoff rules — and a gut punch to a fanbase whose confidence has perhaps reached an all-time low.
Steelers fans might not always agree on who should be blamed when the team struggles, but one thing is clear: The results haven’t been
good enough.
There’s still a ton of season left, and we at Read & React don’t want to go into full-blown panic mode following just one loss. Each one is tough to stomach, and we still think this is a team capable of roughly 10 wins and a playoff spot. That team can course correct and improve as the season goes on.
But considering the general tone and tenor of the fanbase, and the fact that we both have a set of working eyeballs that have witnessed two weeks of 2025 Steelers football, we understand that there are some major early concerns. We thought it would be prudent to pop the hood on what’s been ailing the Steelers so far and share what has us concerned and what we’re hopeful can be improved upon.
What is your biggest cause for concern through two weeks?
RP: Put quite simply, I’m worried by the lack of physicality. The Steelers have been dominated in the trenches two weeks in a row, and it’s not like they’ve faced the league’s brightest and best yet.
Let’s start on the offensive side of the ball. In Week 1, no matter which stats you use, the Steelers run game was putrid. Excluding an Aaron Rodgers kneel down, Pittsburgh rushed the ball 19 times for 52 yards (2.7 YPC).
Dive into some of the advanced metrics and it illustrates further how futile the Steelers were at establishing the run: Pittsburgh ball carriers averaged -0.04 yards before contact — indicating they were getting hit behind the line of scrimmage — and averaged -0.1 EPA per rush. Making matters worse, the Steelers only faced a stacked box (eight-plus defenders) on 10% of their rushing attempts, and faced light boxes (six or fewer defenders) on 45% of their attempts.
Things got a little better against Seattle, but the results are still far from what the Steelers will need to be competitive against the top of the AFC. Excluding a three-yard scramble from Aaron Rodgers at the end of the game, the Steelers ran the ball 20 times for 69 yards (3.45 YPC). They improved their average yards before contact to 0.48, but that figure would still rank 28th in the NFL. Pittsburgh’s rushing EPA (-6.1) ranks 23rd in the NFL after two games. Any way you slice it, they’ve been bad.
And that Jets run defense that had Pittsburgh in such a bind in Week 1? It got sliced up by Buffalo’s ground attack, allowing running back James Cook to gain 132 yards on 21 carries and score two touchdowns in Week 2.
Take a look at the Pittsburgh offensive line on film, and a major theme in the Steelers’ struggles becomes clear: they are not a physically imposing unit.
Looking at that all on display, you don’t need to be an offensive line play expert to see some of the problems. Too often are Steelers linemen displaying poor pad level, preventing any drive from their legs and allowing themselves to get off balance. Defenders are getting easy access to the chests of the Steelers’ linemen, which allows the defense to dictate the flow of movement.
With the Steelers’ line, the movers are too often the moved. The Steelers have been selling the fanbase on a return to a gritty, ass-kicking style of play that establishes the run and grinds opponents into dust. Unfortunately, they’ve operated like paper weights more often than road graders.
The defensive line is facing similar struggles.
Similar to the offensive line, the defensive line did show some improvement in the underlying numbers from Week 1 to Week 2, but it certainly didn’t feel like it during the flow of the game. In Week 1, the Jets averaged 1.95 yards before contact, and Breece Hall diced up the Steelers for 107 yards at 5.6 yards a pop, while Justin Fields added 48 yards and two scores.
Against Seattle, Sam Darnold posed no rushing threat, and the Steelers did an exceptional job bottling up Zach Charbonnet (15 rushes, 10 yards, 0.7 YPC) just a week after he had looked like Seattle’s best back. However, they had disastrous results against Kenneth Walker (13 carries, 105 yards, 8.1 YPC, and a game-sealing 19-yard touchdown on third-and-goal) who was able to run patiently and exploit cutback lanes all day.
Like the offense, there are a lot of Steelers defensive linemen putting poor pad level on tape. Keeanu Benton has been in hell through two weeks as opposing teams seem to have keyed onto the fact that sending a double team at him often results in the pile being moved in a big way. Manning the middle of a defense is no easy task, but it’s disheartening that Benton seems to be regressing in his development — and still looks out of position at nose tackle.
It’s going to be a big ask for rookie Derrick Harmon to fix this upon his return. It should help, but he’s still just a rookie and what every Steeler lineman not named Cam Heyward has put on tape should be cause for concern.
Do I think the Steelers can get better and improve as the season goes on? Yes, we did see an incremental step forward for the trenches on both sides of the ball in Week 2, after all. But I’m not taking for granted that improvement isn’t guaranteed.
The Steelers can’t continue to get out-physicaled up front. On offense, it limits what areas of the field the team can access and raises the degree of difficulty of playcall sequencing. On defense, it puts the other units in a bind and only accentuates the mistakes made on the second level.
Which I think sets us up to address your concern, Ryland.
RB: Yep. Ryan’s concern hits on what I would agree is the macro issue for the entire team so far. And to expand on it a bit, it’s also the reason why it’s hard to build too much optimism around the Steelers. Getting consistently bullied that badly in the trenches is not a problem readily fixed by some new techniques or with the limited available personnel options in-season.
The other macro problem I’ve noticed is somewhat related: As I wrote about in my Monday postgame column, the Steelers currently have an overreliance on a veteran-heavy roster with a worrying lack of promising young talent.
To zoom in a bit more, that problem has been most apparent with two youngsters on defense: defensive tackle Keeanu Benton, as Ryan already mentioned, and inside linebacker Payton Wilson.
Wilson has been a popular punching bag in Steelers circles as of late, to the point where I hesitate to pile on. And to be fair to him, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin said the linebacker was dealing with fatigue and heat-related issues against the Seahawks, to the point where Wilson reportedly vomited in the huddle at one point.
It’s no surprise he wasn’t playing at full go on Sunday. Still, it isn’t cheap pointing out his performance as he demonstrated the same issues he showed in Week 1 and even the preseason. Like Benton, it’s felt like Wilson has almost regressed from his performance a year ago.
After such a promising rookie year in 2024, it’s been rough to watch the uber-talented linebacker fail to take the next step after being given a larger role on defense in 2025.
Because as bad as the Steelers defensive line has been through two weeks, the linebacker play behind them hasn’t done them any favors.
Some football 101: Defensive lines don’t have a body to cover every gap on each given run play, meaning the linebackers have to step in and make stops — especially against zone runs where the running back has the ability to pick where to go.
In Wilson’s case, he’s often getting to the right gap but hesitating to come forward. Instead of making plays, he just gets picked off by the nearest offensive lineman and can’t make much of an impact.
Wilson isn’t a thumper of a linebacker. He doesn’t have the play strength to hold up against NFL O-linemen, which isn’t itself a death sentence, but it does mean he has to play to what is his best trait: speed.
That hasn’t been the case through two weeks.
He’s still a young player — the game will eventually slow down, right? Sure. But other times it looked like Wilson just doesn’t have the body type or playing style to succeed as an every-down linebacker in the NFL. He was put on the ground a lot against the Seahawks.
In the first play in the video below, it’s exactly that. Wilson gets pancaked by a rookie fullback in what would turn into one of a few Wilson-Queen collisions this season. That’s another problem worth diving into: the Steelers’ top inside linebacker pairing has negative chemistry.
On the second play, Wilson might get held a bit, but he gets manhandled trying to get back to the cutback lane after slightly over-pursuing. And the final clip has Wilson blitzing and putting up hardly any fight when blocked by a running back. Fortunately, Sam Darnold’s throw would be intercepted by Jalen Ramsey, but it’s a brutally quiet rep for what should be a favorable blocking assignment. Instead, the pocket isn’t pushed at all.
It wasn’t all bad on Sunday. Wilson had a sack when he used his speed to shoot a gap and he showed off his sideline-to-sideline range at times. But when I reviewed his 2024 tape against the run last season (and was generally impressed, to be fair), I wrote that his play could resemble that of a safety at times more than a linebacker.
In 2025, Wilson has gone from a passing-down linebacker to an every-down linebacker, and his playing style hasn’t evolved at all to make the change.
In the passing game there’s a bit more overlap between what Wilson does well and what he’s being asked to do, but he’s still been the culprit at times when Pittsburgh has been targeted over the middle of the field. Wilson wasn’t horrible in coverage versus Seattle, but one play exemplified what’s been a problem for the Pittsburgh linebackers this season: defending play action.
Wilson isn’t horribly late reacting to the run fake, but he ends up covering space, no players, when he switches to coverage — there’s not a single Seahawks receiver near him, and it’s not like Sam Darnold is a threat to run. Instead, Darnold flicks a pass right over Wilson for a chunk gain, something the young linebacker could’ve undercut, or at least contested, with some better awareness.
Wilson is far from a lost cause, but he’s stood out negatively in a drastically underperforming defense so far in 2025. He’s far from the only name to blame, but considering he’s one of the few young, upcoming players on that side of the ball, his 2025 has felt like even more of a letdown.
He still has plenty of intriguing tools and has contributed some good plays this season — his career is far from over. But there have been enough incredibly rough reps that you have to wonder if Wilson can develop into the sort of player the Steelers drafted him to be.
What issue are you most optimistic the Steelers can fix?
RB: The return of Derrick Harmon is the first thing I think of when I see this prompt. The Steelers defensive front has been pushed around all season, and getting a first-round talent back in the lineup will certainly help the situation.
In my preseason film room of Harmon’s performance against an excellent Buccaneers offensive line, the takeaway was that the Oregon product wasn’t dominating like he did in college quite yet, but his strength and run defense were already translating to the NFL level.
But as Ryan already mentioned, expecting a rookie to come in and clean up what has been a sprawling issue on the Steeler defense is a ridiculously high expectation. Harmon will make things better, certainly, but replacing just one player up front shouldn’t result in massive changes unless multiple other names step up their games.
So, to pivot: Where I have more optimism than I thought I would entering this season is in the Aaron Rodgers-led passing game.
The veteran quarterback actually had a somewhat disappointing performance against the Seahawks, with a few rough reads and continually looking flustered in the pocket.
But Rodgers, despite his age, still somehow has one of the highest ceilings on the Steelers offense. A few of the passes he uncorked against Seattle were nothing short of elite.
Even the short pass that launched the big Jaylen Warren catch-and-run was thrown at a nifty arm angle into a tight window and while running the opposite direction.
I’ll be the first one to tell you that today’s Aaron Rodgers isn’t the same as the multi-MVP winner of the past. But there’s also a reason why he’s largely regarded as one of the best arm talents in NFL history. Even a diminished version of that can still get you good results.
The Steelers’ offensive line troubles and lack of wide receiver depth still have me worried regarding Rodgers — not just that they haven’t done a good job of helping him out, but that you can already see his trust eroding in the rest of the offense. Rodgers looked skittish in some perfectly-usable pockets in Week 2, and that hurt his consistency after a remarkably efficient Week 1.
Ryan and I debated even putting this question in as there aren’t many Steelers issues we feel confident the team will fix right now. Per Next Gen Stats, Rodgers’ 5.7 air yards per attempt are the third-lowest in the NFL, and his play took a noticeable step back from Week 1 to 2. That’s to say, the Steelers’ passing game was one-dimensional against the Jets and only got worse against the Seahawks.
But quarterback remains the most important position on the field, and Rodgers has the most talent there that the Steelers have seen since Ben Roethlisberger. Even if Pittsburgh fails to “fix” much in the offense this season, I believe that Rodgers still has enough in the tank to keep things interesting.
That’s more than we’ve been able to say in years past.
RP: I don’t have any fancy statistics for this take, and I could end up with egg on my face, but I still believe we’re going to get better play from the Steelers’ secondary moving forward.
For starters, the Steelers’ secondary has been one of the more banged-up units on the team. In Week 2, the Steelers were without starting corner Joey Porter Jr. and starting safety DeShon Elliott, which are also the only returning starters from the secondary a year ago. Jalen Ramsey, Darius Slay, Juan Thornhill, Chuck Clark, Brandin Echols, Jabrill Peppers — they’re all new faces in Pittsburgh and don’t have a ton of experience playing together.
If that sounds like a lame excuse to you, I don’t blame you. But it is the current company line.
I do believe as fans, it’s easy for us to underestimate how hard it is to get a defense operating fully in sync with one another. But my other reason for cautious — extremely cautious, mind you — optimism is that when I watched back the plays where Seattle generated explosive pass plays, I came away feeling like it was more a case of the offense exploiting the weaknesses in the Steelers’ coverage shells more than a case of players getting beat from poor coverage ability.
I do think a large part of the struggles falls on the scheme. Take, for example, these touchdown passes from Justin Fields and Sam Darnold that are essentially identical, both in the offensive concept and the coverage look provided by the Steelers’ defense.
In both plays, the Steelers roll out Cover-1 man and shade their corners off the ball with outside leverage. In both instances, the offenses run deep crossing routes that immediately put those cornerbacks in trail, and create conflict when they converge on the safety playing the deep post. This creates a natural obstacle for the defense, and a rub for the receivers, which makes it damn near impossible for at least one of the receivers not to create enough separation. Fields had all day on his throw to Wilson, and Darnold was still able to get this throw off despite the Steelers’ pressure getting home on the play.
The touchdown added insult to injury, at least for this column, as Darnold found rookie Tory Horton — one of my 2025 draft gems and a player Ryland and I took heat for suggesting could have been a more prudent pick for the Steelers than OLB4 Jack Sawyer. Whoops!
The good news for the Steelers is the upcoming slate of games should give them a chance to figure things out.
- The Patriots have a talented young quarterback in Drake Maye, but they lack consistent playmakers.
- The Vikings have the best wide receiver in the game in Justin Jefferson, but in Ireland, they’ll be trotting out either a banged-up and limited J.J. McCarthy or Carson Wentz, who was nearly out of the league and wasn’t signed to a team until August 24.
- Joe Flacco and the messy Cleveland offense follow the bye.
- The Joe Burrow-less Bengals squad is the week after that. If healthy, they still feature a frightening combination of pass catchers, but backup Jake Browning just threw three interceptions against Jacksonville, so hopefully the Steelers will be in a better position to take advantage of that matchup once it rolls around.
On paper, that’s the kind of schedule you’d want for the Steelers to get right. Whether or not they will is a different matter. For now, I’m holding out hope and believing the two interceptions the Steelers generated against Seattle are a sign of things to come.
Is there a Steelers player facing a little too much criticism?
RP: The hot topic of discussion this week has been the fanbase and media dogpiling on rookie third-round pick Kaleb Johnson. There’s no sugar coating it: Johnson’s first two weeks have been largely disappointing.
A fumble on a kick return against the Jets was a rough start, and his kick return gaffe in Week 2 was part of a 14-point swing — with the other half being the Calvin Austin III tipped-ball interception in the endzone on a ball intended for Freiermuth — that ultimately sank the Steelers’ chances of winning.
As a big believer in Johnson, it hasn’t been the outcome I wanted to see, but I can’t help but feel a bit frustrated with how this coaching staff has handled Johnson’s usage.
For starters, I put as much blame on the coaching staff for Johnson’s kick return blunder as I do Johnson. Johnson had just 15 returns in his college career, with 13 of them coming in 2022 when he was a freshman. He had zero return attempts in 2024.
I get why the Steelers tried it. With the new kickoff rules, many teams have compared today’s returns to setting up blocks for the running game. But the Steelers have been among the league’s worst since the changes have been implemented. In 2024, the Steelers returned 25 kicks, the 11th fewest in the league. Pittsburgh had 16 kick returns of 20+ yards (29th) and 0 returns of 40+ yards (T-32nd). The Steelers’ longest kick return went for 35 yards, tied with the Vikings for worst in the league.
Danny Smith is one of the most respected special teams coaches in the league, but he has done little to inspire confidence that the Steelers are going to figure out their kick return woes, and it’s clear Johnson didn’t understand the rules this past weekend. Johnson needs to wear that blunder, but the coaching staff arguably deserves equal blame, and it’s beyond frustrating that this could mean the Steelers second pick of the 2025 draft is further buried on the running back depth chart.
The Steelers have insisted on making Kenneth Gainwell a thing through two weeks, and it’s an odd choice. Gainwell is a fine enough third-down back with his receiving ability, but has done little to add value to the offense as a runner — three of his five carries on Sunday went for one yard or fewer and he had seven rushes for 19 yards in Week 1. Six of Gainwell’s 12 carries have gone for 1 yard or fewer, and he’s also got a fumble on his 2025 ledger. On the season Gainwell is averaging 3.3 YPC. If anything it should be Gainwell, not Johnson, returning kicks as Gainwell has 29 NFL kick returns for 665 yards in his career.
Johnson has been given little opportunity thus far to tote the rock. In my opinion, this is yet again a coaching staff misunderstanding the players they’ve acquired. Johnson isn’t a quick burst runner, but he does have a big body that can wear down defenses and he can get over 20 miles per hour when given a clear runway. That isn’t a skill set that necessarily meshes with kick returns, which often need returns to stop and start as they navigate traffic. For a player that needs his speed to build up, that’s a tough assignment.
Additionally, Johnson was a high volume back in college, and he’s a runner who needs a consistent rhythm of carries to be effective. Giving him a single carry a game is essentially meaningless for his development and the offense at large.
Some of you are likely headed straight to the comment section to tell me how his performance hasn’t warranted the touches, and sure, I don’t have a strong argument against that. Jaylen Warren clearly is the most explosive back the Steelers have at the moment, but I’ll also point out he’s averaging 3.4 YPC, and that much of the Steelers run game woes can be attributed to the offensive line rather than the backs. And it’s not like Gainwell is paying off the Steelers’ early commitment to getting him touches either.
Johnson has just two carries this season so far and he was hit behind the line on both attempts. Nothing makes this clearer than Johnson totaling three yards after contact on the season but having a rushing line of -1 yards. He’s fought an uphill battle on his limited carries, and nothing Gainwell has done has convinced me Johnson couldn’t manage a similar or better stat line with the same volume.
Lastly, I think it’s important to remember Johnson is a rookie, and rookies make mistakes. That’s part of the deal. Good teams don’t bury their young players forever for a mistake, they help their rookies grow from their early struggles. Especially the ones they invested significant draft capital in.
Le’Veon Bell is still discussed with reverence by many Steelers fans as the last elite Pittsburgh running back. I think many of you are conveniently forgetting that Bell’s first season was an ugly one too. Bell missed the first three weeks of his rookie season with injury and he wasn’t exactly a model of efficiency once he returned.
So don’t give up on Kaleb Johnson just yet. I still think he’s going to be a good player for the Steelers in the long run. But it’d be nice if Tomlin and company could play to one of their young players’ strengths for once, rather than telling a fish to climb a tree.
RB: I’ll take a similar route to Ryan by highlighting a player who has definitely disappointed as a whole this season but probably deserves a bit more grace. That would be the other half of the Steelers’ much-maligned inside linebacker duo: Patrick Queen.
Queen has not been good against the pass this season. He was a rough watch all around in Week 1 against the Jets. Don’t take this as an attempt at revisionist history. But the Steelers found a bit of footing in their run defense last week against the Seahawks, and Queen was a major factor in that.
Like Wilson, he’s a speedster at linebacker first who can get tossed around at the line of scrimmage at times. But unlike Wilson, he showed some decisiveness in Week 2 to make a number of splash plays — when defending the run, the difference between the two linebackers was night and day.
And like Wilson, Queen wasn’t at full strength against the Seahawks, dealing with a rib injury and clearly in pain.
I’ve been very critical of the Steelers’ inside linebacker room so far this season, to the point where I wouldn’t be surprised if the team elevates recent practice squad signing Ja’Whaun Bentley to the active roster ahead of Week 3’s game against the New England Patriots. And as I pointed out in the Payton Wilson segment, Queen has looked incredibly undisciplined at times, especially defending the pass.
But after a rough showing in Week 1, Queen deserves credit for turning up the heat against the run against the Seahawks. As we’ve been saying all article: Pittsburgh’s issues don’t appear close to being fixed. But Queen did make some major strides in Week 2.
Join in on Steelers R&R by sharing your takes on this week’s topics. What’s your biggest worry for the 2025 Steelers? Can they fix it? Feel free to pitch future questions in the comment section or on Twitter/X: tag @_Ryland_B or @RyanParishMedia, or email us at steelersreadnreact@gmail.com.
