ORLANDO, Fla. —The Pittsburgh Steelers have a historic identity of being a dominant defensive team. The Steel Curtain defense led the team to four Super Bowl titles in the 1970s and Dick LeBeau's Blitzburgh schemes helped them to two more in the early 2000s.
The Steelers have had their offensive stars over the years, but the identity of the team has always run through its defense.
How much they've relied on that defense has varied depending on the talent then team has had all over the squad. In 2024, the Steelers expected to lean heavily on that unit.
They had good reason to think they'd be able to. In 2023, they spent most of the season either without or with a hobbled version of defensive stars Cam Heyward and Minkah Fitzpatrick and injury crises at linebacker and safety so extensive that they were starting players pulled out of retirement mid-season .
Despite all that, the Steelers finished 2023 sixth in scoring defense , a testament to a unit that probably could have been the best in the league with some better injury luck.
Then the Steelers went out and made it even better, signing linebacker Patrick Queen to the team's highest-priced free agent contract, trading wide receiver Diontae Johnson — to the detriment of their offense — for cornerback Donte Jackson and making an extremely savvy free agent signing in DeShon Elliott . Add in Cam Sutton, Payton Wilson and Beanie Bishop and the Steelers defense was chock full of upgrades going into 2024.
With their performance in 2023, if the Steelers stayed mostly healthy, it was reasonable to think that they'd be among the best defenses in the league, and they had a chance to be an elite unit all-time.
In the end, none of that came to pass. The Steelers stayed relatively healthy, and started out the season strong, but when faced with condensed schedules and elevated levels of competition down the stretch run, the Steelers defense crumbled .
The unit's best three games all came in September: allowing six points at the Denver Broncos in Week 2 and 10 points at the Atlanta Falcons and at home against the Los Angeles Chargers in Weeks 1 and 3.
Their three worst games all came in December, yielding 38 points to the Cincinnati Bengals on Dec. 1, 34 to the Baltimore Ravens on Dec. 21 and 29 to the Kansas City Chiefs four days later on Christmas.
The Steelers finished eighth in scoring defense , a significant decline despite their improved personnel. They weren't any better on a yards or rate basis. They finished 12th in total yards and tied for 14th in yards per play.
The drop off at the end of the season was sudden, shocking and frankly, hard to watch. The Steelers defense that looked like world-beaters on paper looked disorganized, timid and in the playoff loss to the Baltimore Ravens, like they were defeated before they ever stepped onto the field.
What happened, how it happened and how it can be rectified, if it can be rectified, will be the central questions of the Steelers' 2025 offseason. The team will likely continue its rebuild of the offense, adding to the wide receiver position and replacing Najee Harris , while hoping its young offensive line continues to develop.
But the theory of the Steelers the last few years has been a team that is trying to rebuild on the fly, to both give an aging but elite defense a chance to win while chipping away at their talent level deficit on the offensive side of the ball.
But if the defense can no longer be elite, despite improve personnel, then that must change the equation for the Steelers.
So what happened?
"I think I'm just at the very early stages of unearthing that, to be quite honest with you," head coach Mike Tomlin said in his post-season press conference in January. "I acknowledge we have some things to unearth, but these exit interviews and things of that nature will the very beginnings of that and that's something that's going to be asked and discovered over the upcoming days and weeks and months."
Talking to some of the members of the defense at the 2025 Pro Bowl Games in Orlando , it seems they're still working through things, as well.
Pittsburgh Steelers defensive tackle Cam Heyward during AFC practice for the 2025 Pro Bowl Games on Feb. 1, 2025. — Alan Saunders / Steelers Now
"I'm getting there," defensive captain Cam Heyward said. "Still taking it all in. Our execution was not up to par. And I own that. Defensively, we put on one of our worst showings of the year, and it comes down to your execution, comes down to our rules, our assignments. That needs to clean up, but the men have to be responsible for getting it done."
In terms of how to go about making that change, they were a little less forthcoming.
"We've had necessary discussions," Minkah Fitzpatrick said. "We're going to talk about it with the people who need to know."
If you want to be hopeful, there are a number of potential reasons for the team's slide that likely won't be a factor in 2025. The elevated late season point totals coincided with a turnover spree from the Pittsburgh offense.
The condensed nature of their schedule, with three games in 11 and two of them on the road, was unusual. So was playing all of their division games plus their two other most challenging opponents in a 10-week stretch at the end of the season.
Watt battled through an ankle injury late and was not his usual self. Heyward , Queen and several other defensive players battled the flu during that crucial stretch.
"This is the worst my body has ever felt after the season," Queen said.
But the team is unlikely to look at what happened in 2024, and explain it away as a fluke while not making changes for 2025. Already, linebackers coach Aaron Curry has departed . He certainly won't be the last personnel departure, something that is a fact of life when a team fails to meet its expectations.
"Especially in how the season ended, I think it's a point of us getting better, personnel-wise, schematic wise, just us as a team playing better, communicating better,'" Queen said. "I think every single factor has to go into those decisions."
But one place that won't change is the man that might have the single most influence on the Steelers defense: Tomlin. He'll be back, along with defensive coordinator Teryl Austin.
It doesn't seem that the players have lost faith in the ability of that staff to lead them back to greatness.
"Coach T should be in Pittsburgh, nowhere else," Heyward said. "But the men make him right and the men make him wrong. We have to own it. … There needs to be a level of accountability from the men in that locker room. And that's the only way we're going to get better."
Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin and defensive tackle Cam Heyward during a game against the Kansas City Chiefs on Dec. 25, 2024. — Ed Thompson / Steelers Now
Their time is running out. Heyward had a super-human season at 35 years old, but it's fair to question how many more of those he has in him. Watt will be 31 next season. Fitzpatrick will be 30.
The highest-paid defense in the league can't continue to be just good and exist in permanence. Either they must improve, or they will be torn apart.
"Only one team gets crowned," Heyward said. "But hopefully we're crowned in the next couple of years."
They're running out of time.
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