With the Pittsburgh Steelers' 2025 season coming to an abrupt end, we're taking a step back to look at what went wrong. Though Mike Tomlin elected to step down after 19 seasons as head coach, it's impossible to point the finger at just one player, coach, or member of the front office.
The Steelers did everything in their power to patch together a roster worthy of competing in 2025. Unfortunately, the win-now mentality of Mike Tomlin and the organization led to several shortsighted moves and poor financial investments.
T.J. Watt was particularly disappointing this year. Despite earning a lucrative contract extension that, at the time, made him the highest-paid non-quarterback in the history of the NFL, the 2021 Defensive Player of the Year didn't live up to lofty expectations.
He's not the only one.
These five players fleeced the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2025
T.J. Watt
At $41 million per season in new money average, Watt's contract is already looking like a mistake. No, we couldn't have planned for Watt to suffer a punctured lung from a dry-needling incident at the team facility. But long before that, Watt looked like just an above-average pass rusher... and that's not good enough, considering his steep pricetag.
Aside from his 2022 season—which forced him to miss seven games with a pectoral injury—his age-31 season in 2025 was Watt's worst since his rookie year in 2017.
Darius Slay
Without a doubt, signing Darius Slay proved to be the worst offseason decision the Steelers made in 2025. The 34-year-old cornerback was handed a one-year, fully guaranteed $10 million contract, but he couldn't even make it through the season without being released by Pittsburgh.
Slay's age caught up with him quickly, and literally every other cornerback on the team proved to be a better option in 2025. Slay was two years older than the next-oldest CB to take a snap in the NFL this season, and it showed. Let's hope Tomlin learned a lesson here.
Jonnu Smith
At the time, landing Jonnu Smith in the Jalen Ramsey trade that sent Minkah Fitzpatrick looked like the cherry on top of the deal. However, Smith's presence hurt his team, in a sense. With the emergence of Darnell Washington, there weren't enough snaps to go around at tight end for most of the season.
This pushed Pat Freiermuth to the back burner, despite Smith being inefficient as a pass catcher in 2025. Smith also struggled as a blocker all season.
Patrick Queen
Patrick Queen cruised to over 120 tackles in his third consecutive NFL season, but that hardly means he was a good player for Pittsburgh's defense in 2025. The veteran linebacker struggled with consistency all season long and proved to be a liability in coverage.
Queen had a $17.7 million cap number in 2025, per Over the Cap, but he didn't live up to his billing. He had some big moments this season, but the good didn't outweigh the bad (and certainly not for the money the Steelers gave him).
Kyle Dugger
Desperate times call for desperate measures. Before the NFL trade deadline, the Steelers made an aggressive move to secure Kyle Dugger from the New England Patriots after injuries struck at safety.
While this addition didn't come at a huge financial cost to the Steelers, it cost Pittsburgh a pick-swap in the 2026 NFL Draft for a player who proved to be only an average starting safety during the second half of the season with the Steelers.