While the Pittsburgh Steelers have much to figure out on offense, GM Omar Khan knows the defense needs a postmortem. Despite the vast resources the Steelers have invested in the unit, the defense still faltered down the stretch. Early in the season, they were in the conversation for the best defense in the league.
By the end of the year, however, the Steelers were losing games because of the defense. Granted, the offense wasn’t helping at that point, but the defense was doing enough to lose on its own. And Khan knows that they haven’t been getting their return on investment with the most expensive defense in the NFL.
“No, we didn’t win a playoff game this year, so definitely not satisfied with where we’re at”, Omar Khan said during the 2025 NFL Scouting Combine when asked whether the Steelers were satisfied with what they were getting from the defense relative to the investments made.
As is typically the case, of course, their defensive payroll is top-heavy. The Steelers’ top five cap hits for 2025 are all on defense, ranging from T.J. Watt’s $30,418,695 to Patrick Queen’s $17,693,333. The closest offensive player is the most recent Omar Khan extension, TE Pat Freiermuth at $12,885,000.
The Steelers don’t, of course, want to have a lopsided payroll skewed toward the defense, as Khan would be the first to tell you. While they could have done more in free agency to sign offensive players—whiffing on a premium wide receiver trade last year didn’t help—the fact of the matter is they have had more defensive players worth paying in recent years.
Signing a quarterback this offseason to a sizeable deal will raise the offensive expenditure a bit, but hardly equal. The Steelers will be spending over half of their cap space on defense, and Khan has to figure out what to do with the rest.
While they need to invest resources in the offense, that doesn’t solve the problem at hand. How do they get more out of a defense that should be giving them more? It would help if Minkah Fitzpatrick and his $22,355,000 cap hit could return to his All-Pro form after two seasons. The Steelers very much need him to if they are going to pay him $15,500,000 in base salary this year.
Even before the defense dealt with crippling communication breakdowns, the Steelers had already experienced a lull in the middle of the season. Injuries to players like Donte Jackson and Alex Highsmith didn’t help. Young core guys like Patrick Queen and Joey Porter Jr. also suffered inconsistencies. Outside of Cameron Heyward, the defensive line also underperformed, often substantially.
Now, the question is what can the Steelers and Omar Khan do about that this offseason? Would they dare to do something as radical as, for example, trading Fitzpatrick? Mind you, the goal isn’t to lower the price tag for the defense, but to raise its performance. The problem isn’t that the Steelers aren’t getting what they are paying for, at least not the core problem. That is, simply, that the defense isn’t as good as they need it to be.
