The NFLPA report cards over the last few years have not been kind to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Mike Tomlin has received high marks, but it has basically been all bad for the franchise otherwise. Notably, the locker room was given an F in the survey ahead of the 2024 season.
The Athletic’s Mike Jones, along with some of website’s staffers, conducted an anonymous survey in several different categories, and one player seems to agree with the sentiment of a poor locker room experience at Acrisure Stadium.
“I would say Pittsburgh, because it smells like piss in their locker room,” one player said via Jones.
Going back to the NFLPA report card, only 40 percent of those surveyed said the space was big enough and many cited outdated lockers that were in need of an upgrade.
Another player listed Pittsburgh as his least favorite road trip for an unrelated reason.
“Even though it’s my vibe: tough. It’s just always gray and shitty weather there,” said another player.
Unsurprisingly, Los Angeles was the most popular destination for most players.
Acrisure Stadium opened in 2001 — it was then Heinz Field — and is shared with the University of Pittsburgh Panthers. There have been times where high school, college, and NFL teams all play on the same surface over the span of the same weekend in the late fall. The locker rooms get a lot more use than some others.
While there have been various upgrades to the stadium over the years, the locker rooms have remained largely untouched. Acrisure Stadium is roughly average age compared to the rest of the league as the 15th oldest in existence. The new wave of stadiums certainly offers much better amenities, and then there are teams, like the Cincinnati Bengals, that made large investments to overhaul their locker rooms.
Will the Steelers eventually follow suit to upgrade their facilities in hopes of making strides on their NFLPA surveys at the end of the year?
