The NFL does a pretty good job at fostering parity where bad teams can become good from one season to the next. But what happens to the teams that dwell in the middle for long periods of time? The Pittsburgh Steelers have more or less become a case study in that specific type of mediocrity over the last several years.
Most bad teams have at least one big reason for optimism. Maybe it’s a recent first-round quarterback who is developing, or a completely new coaching staff that has the potential to shake things up for the better. Those experiments don’t always succeed, but they at least provide some form of hope for the franchise.
If you ask Dan Orlovsky, no situation is worse than the Steelers’ at this very moment.
“Pittsburgh, the way I look at it right now, there’s no offense in the league that scares you less than Pittsburgh,” Orlovsky said Tuesday via The Pat McAfee Show. “There’s no situation that is more, I guess, depressing than Pittsburgh’s right now.”
Only time will tell if the Steelers made the right call by passing on nearly every quarterback in the 2025 NFL Draft. They had their pick at No. 21 overall of any quarterback not named Cam Ward and they passed. They passed on Jaxson Dart and Tyler Shough once, Jalen Milroe twice and Shedeur Sanders three times when they very obviously do not have a long-term answer at the most important position.
They selected Will Howard in the sixth round. While I am a fan of that pick and the value it presents, I still think they will be angling to select a quarterback in the first round of the 2026 NFL Draft in front of a home crowd in Pittsburgh.
The coaching staff is largely the same, and there remains a very good chance that the future of the quarterback position is not yet on the roster. Aaron Rodgers could potentially have one final season of success, but he hasn’t even committed to the team yet, which would leave them with Mason Rudolph as QB1.
Even retaining Justin Fields would have provided some hope as a former first-round pick who started to look like the best version of himself last year in Pittsburgh. But their decision in the QB room last year forced him to look elsewhere to do what’s best for his career.
Orlovsky’s take doesn’t mean he thinks the Steelers will be the worst team in the league. I still think they have a decent shot at qualifying for the playoffs. But it continues to feel like Groundhog Day with the same insanity playing itself out year after year with roughly the same results. All while the best part of the team on defense continues to age toward its inevitable decline.
The one thing of hope to cling onto is the draft picks that the Steelers have stockpiled in 2026 to have a chance at drafting the future of their franchise at quarterback.
How’s that for a little doom and gloom on a Tuesday?
