In times of great change, the Steelers remain a constant—even when most agree that they shouldn’t. That describes their 2025 offseason to date, following a crushing collapse at the end of last season. Despite their failures, and promises of change, they have merely rearranged the furniture. While there is still time for changes of other forms, their coaching staff is clearly not Exhibit A.
“It seems like it’s all just talk”, Steelers beat writer Mike DeFabo wrote for The Athletic in a mailbag article. “To me, these are all cosmetic changes that are about optics more than actually producing meaningful change. At this point, if the Steelers are actually going to shake things up significantly, it will have to be done to the roster, by trading someone substantial”.
There are, of course, many different ways in which a team can make major changes. Typically, the Steelers are not such a team to make them, and they have given no indications they will. If they aren’t even willing to make a change at defensive coordinator or OL coach, they aren’t likely to budge.
Then again, the Steelers reportedly were willing to trade for WR Brandon Aiyuk a year ago, just about ready to pull the trigger when Aiyuk pulled the rug out from under them. While they didn’t land that plane, they were reportedly willing to fly it.
If the Steelers were willing to do that, perhaps they would be willing to pay top dollar for Tee Higgins. While they paid a premium for Patrick Queen a year ago, inside linebackers and wide receivers are in different income brackets. Higgins could cost more than twice as much—in fact, he assuredly would.
And let’s be honest, it’s not like they are going to have a top-10 quarterback contract on the books. Even if they were to re-sign Russell Wilson, such a deal wouldn’t even crack the top half of the league. In other words, the Steelers should be able to afford to make a more substantial change than usual.
But it also seems clear that they need more than just an infusion of talent. Considering the amount of communication issues the Steelers had in 2024, there has to be some aspect of the coaching staff that isn’t working. And yet that appears largely intact—unless Aaron Curry and Grady Brown are the fall guys for that.
Time will tell whether or not Mike Tomlin’s “change” is more than just talk. So far, the Steelers have done nothing but cosmetic adjustments, and I don’t blame fans for expecting little else. There are no indications that they plan to expand the coaching staff—in fact, quite the contrary.
