The good, the bad, and the ugly from Week 1 of pads at 2025 Steelers training camp: What’s wrong with Pittsburgh’s offense?
The Pittsburgh Steelers have completed the first, and what will be the longest week of padded practice in 2025 training camp. With two weeks of scrimmages under their belt and a week’s worth of live drills, we have more than enough of a sample size to give some early takeaways about the 2025 version of […]
The Pittsburgh Steelers have completed the first, and what will be the longest week of padded practice in 2025 training camp.
With two weeks of scrimmages under their belt and a week’s worth of live drills, we have more than enough of a sample size to give some early takeaways about the 2025 version of the team.
The good, the bad, and the ugly…
The Good: Defense
Good is probably not strong enough. Great or elite would be the most accurate description for what we have seen from the defense to this point. 7 Shots? The defense has won almost every practice. One-on-ones? You have T.J. Watt and Alex Highsmith working the tackles, Malik Harrison bull-dozing Kaleb Johnson, and Darius Slay locking up Roman Wilson.
And then when you got to the team-specific drills this week…You know 11-on-11, two-minute, goal-line, etc…It might as well have been varsity vs. J.V. It just hasn’t been a fair match to this point and it raises a specific question: is the defense this good, or is the offense that bad?
The Bad: Offense
At some point, the lack of continuity or chemistry within the offense becomes an excuse, and the lack of execution, inefficiency, and situational flaws start to become a real concern.
We are starting to reach that point.
The defense won 7 Shots 6-1, let up no ground in team run, and stonewalled all three offensive units in the goal-line drill, on Sunday alone. This comes on the back of interceptions and incompletions that have marred team periods, bad snaps, false starts, and more in Week 1 of practice.
We know the Steelers’ defense is good. DK Metcalf told NFL Network after Sunday’s practice that it’s the best defense he’s ever played against.
So maybe it’s just iron sharpening iron. Or maybe, the Steelers offense is in trouble.
Time will tell.
The Ugly: Offensive line
The most important unit on this team has been anything but promising up to this point. Some of it stems from purely not playing together. Sunday marked the first time all camp that Broderick Jones and Isaac Seumalo were live in team drills after dealing with injuries.
Some of it comes from learning a new quarterback like Aaron Rodgers, perhaps causing bad snaps or false starts that plagued Week 1. But this group was seen running gassers on Sunday because of too many errors. They haven’t been able to find their footing both literally and figuratively, and if they don’t by the time September rolls around, all of the Steelers’ plans will be thwarted.
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