The Pittsburgh Steelers have been in a rut for nearly a decade. They make the playoffs almost every year, but they also get walloped in the Wild Card round every year. So, Pittsburgh’s brass tried something new ahead of the 2025 campaign: go heavy on veterans in the offseason.
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They traded for All-Pro WR D.K. Metcalf, All-Pro CB Jalen Ramsey, and elite TE Jonnu Smith, and also signed All-Pro CB Darius Slay. And of course, the coup de grâce was signing 41-year-old, four-time NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers.
Despite all those new faces, head coach Mike Tomlin decided to hold several of them out of the preseason altogether. Ramsey and Slay got some work in, but Rodgers, Metcalf, and Smith didn’t play a single snap despite being major offseason additions. Steelers great Ben Roethlisberger, who suited up at least a little bit in each of his 18 preseasons in Pittsburgh, isn’t a huge fan of this cautious approach.
“I think it comes down to just trying to preserve guys, I don’t necessarily agree with it all the way through,” the former QB said on Footbahlin with Ben Roethlisberger.
“I understand you’ve gotta protect those guys, because if you don’t have them you’re in trouble… You walk that line because in this game, we’ve seen [Steelers first round pick Derrick] Harmon get hurt. Freaked everybody out. Obviously, he’s gonna be okay,” he added.
Rodgers was one of just nine QBs not to take a single preseason snap this year. So he’s not alone. However, he was the only one of those nine playing for a new team in 2025.
Even 40-year-old Joe Flacco got a few drives in for the Browns in preseason Week 3. Roethlisberger worries about the fact that Rodgers, Smith, and Metcalf have never played together before, and will have to take their first live reps together in a competitive Week 1 matchup.
“Yeah, you can’t afford to lose those star players. But, there is something to the fact that none of them have played in this offense, none of them have played together… There’s something there to getting a little bit of action in a game-like situation.”
Apart from perennial All-Pros T.J. Watt and Cam Heyward, everyone else on the Steelers did get some work in during the preseason, however. Rookie running back Kaleb Johnson has seen a good amount of snaps. First-round pick, defensive tackle Derrick Harmon, had an injury scare. But as Big Ben pointed out, Harmon’s injury turned out to be a sprained knee that should keep him out only a week or two.
With all of these aging superstar additions, this Steelers’ season could go one of two ways. It could be a failure like the Eagles’ self-proclaimed Dream Team in the early 2010s, or it could be a fun and entertaining success like Washington’s “Over-the-Hill Gang” from the 1970s. Only time will tell.
