The Steelers are on a 22-year run of finishing .500 or better. That’s a known thing. It’s cool, it’s notable, but it’s old news at this point. But they’ve played another NFL season in that time, and that one is also interesting. It’s the postseason-season. Since winning Super Bowl XLIII, the Steelers have played 16 postseason games. In those games, they’ve gone 5-11, scoring 356 points and allowing 460. That’s a -104 point differential that would have been worse than any team but the Cardinals, Raiders, Titans and Jets last year. It also includes a still-active seven-game postseason losing streak — the last time Pittsburgh won a postseason game, Obama was still the president. Obviously, competition gets harder when you get to the postseason, so a bad record isn’t necessarily that surprising. But for all the regular-season success in Pittsburgh in recent years, it hasn’t carried over to the postseason. The Steelers have consistently been one of the worst teams to make the tournament. Now, with a new head coach, what changes in Pittsburgh? Do they finally drop under .500? Do they break through in January? Or will it be another year of sneaking into a playoff spot and an early exit?
2026 Sleepers, Busts & Bold Predictions: Pittsburgh Steelers
Sleeper: Darnell Washington, TE
Steelers tight ends totaled 155 targets last year — 54 each for Pat Freiermuth and Jonnu Smith, 43 for Washington, 4 for Connor Heyward. Smith and Heyward are gone now, with fifth-round rookie Riley Nowakowski the only notable replacement at the position (and he might be more of a fullback a la Heyward). Meanwhile, Washington had a mini-breakout last year, with more targets, receptions, yards and first downs than he had in his first two seasons combined. In Freiermuth and Washington, the Steelers have two excellent blocking tight ends. They also have two giants — Freiermuth is 6-foot-5, Washington 6-7. Give a healthy share of Smith’s targets to those two, and you’re talking 60-70 targets apiece. A 6-7 tight end getting 60-plus targets is begging for a few touchdowns, especially after the team just gave him a big extension. No one is pegging Washington to be a top-10 finisher, but given he’s free in drafts, a smattering of relevant weeks would be a heck of a return.
Bust: DK Metcalf, WR
I had my concerns about Metcalf being paired with Aaron Rodgers a year ago — he just isn’t as versatile a receiver as the guys Rodgers has found success with in the past. Well, Metcalf put up career lows in targets (99) and yards (850), and most of his other numbers — receptions (59), yards per game (56.7), PPR points (187.2) — were his lowest since his rookie year in 2019. Another year of chemistry with Rodgers should help Metcalf, but that is offset by the arrival of Michael Pittman Jr., who runs a more versatile set of routes than Metcalf already and has gotten talks of an expanded route tree this season. In early ADP, Metcalf is WR32 and Pittman WR45, but give me the new arrival over Metcalf.
Bold Prediction: The Steelers Finish with 6 Wins or Fewer
Pittsburgh went 10-7 last year. But that came by sweeping Baltimore twice in situations not likely to repeat — the Ravens defense was torn apart by injuries, and Tyler Loop missed that last-second kick in Week 18. They scored wins over New England, Minnesota, Cincinnati and Detroit that would be tough to repeat. They had the 12th-best record in football but the 18th-best point differential. Now, Aaron Rodgers is back and 42. And he’s not an outlier — the Steelers had the second-oldest snap-weighted roster in the NFL last year, and adding 28-year-olds in Michael Pittman Jr. and Rico Dowdle (28 this weekend) don’t help that. With the Bengals and Ravens expected to be better in 2026 than they were in 2025 and with new coach Mike McCarthy definitely not Mike Tomlin, this should finally be the year the Steelers have to tear it down and start over.
