Steelers 2025 Season in Review

Twenty-seven takeaways. Fourth in football. A defense that ripped the ball away nearly every other game while Aaron Rodgers, at forty-one years old, threw twenty-four touchdowns against just seven picks. Here's how the Steelers stole the AFC North as a four seed, why the offense was more middle-of-the-pack than the touchdown total suggests, and the one number on defense that explains how a ten-win team got smoked in the Wild Card. Ten and seven. Division champs. Then Houston walked into the Wild Card and ended it thirty to six. The takeaway machine ran out of takeaways at the worst possible moment.

Let's talk about the team by the numbers. Total offensive expected points added — how much every Steelers snap moved the scoreboard needle — came in at plus twenty-four, sixteenth in the league. Dead middle. The defense allowed plus nineteen point six expected points added, eighteenth, and on defense you want that number going negative — middle of the pack there too. The real separator was the turnover game: twenty-seven takeaways, fourth in football. Third down converted at forty-one percent, solidly above average. The season itself was streaky as anything — they opened three and one, dropped four of six in the middle including a ten to twenty-five muffing at the Chargers and a seven to twenty-six muffing at home to Buffalo, then ripped off four wins in five to steal the division on the final weekend against Baltimore. Boom-or-bust month to month, but the floor was high enough to win the North.

Now let's talk about the passing offense. Team passing expected points added was plus sixteen point seven on five hundred and eighty-three attempts — plus zero point zero three per attempt, sixteenth in the league. League average. And that tracks with the tape: Rodgers' completion percentage of sixty-five point seven was one point three below expectation, so he wasn't elevating the offense — he was managing it. Twenty-four touchdowns to seven interceptions is the headline, and it's a real headline — that touchdown total tied for thirteenth in the league. The lead receiver was DK Metcalf: fifty-nine catches, eight hundred and fifty yards, six touchdowns over fifteen games. The signature moment came in Week 4 against Minnesota — first and ten from their own twenty, Rodgers hit Metcalf on a short middle throw and Metcalf turned it into an eighty-yard touchdown, sixty-six yards after the catch. Plus six point four expected points added on one snap. That play was the passing game in miniature — efficient veteran quarterback, one alpha receiver, the occasional bomb papering over the average-ness of everything else.

Now let's dig into the rushing offense. This is where the numbers tell a sneakier story. Team rushing expected points added came in at plus three point six on four hundred and seven carries — only plus zero point zero one per attempt, but that still ranked ninth in the league, seventy-fifth percentile. Efficient on a per-snap basis. But four point three yards per carry ranks twenty-sixth, twenty-second percentile — bottom of the league in raw efficiency. How do both things coexist? Situational running. They ran when it mattered and converted. The lead back was Jaylen Warren — two hundred and eleven carries, nine hundred and fifty-eight yards, four point five a pop, six rushing touchdowns. His rushing yards over expected was plus one hundred and eighty point six, eighth among qualified runners. He created yards the blocking didn't give him. Boom-or-bust ground game: productive in spots, but the per-carry average tells you it never truly dictated terms.

Next up, the pass defense. This is where Pittsburgh's identity lived. Forty-eight sacks — sixth in the NFL, eighty-fourth percentile. Twenty-seven takeaways including fifteen interceptions and twelve fumble recoveries, fourth in football. That's the formula. But here's the muffing — defensive expected points added allowed came in at plus nineteen point six, eighteenth, because when they didn't get the takeaway or the sack, they got picked apart. Feast-or-famine. The signature snapshot came in Week 3 against New England, fourth quarter tied at fourteen — Drake Maye dropped back, Nick Herbig got home, the ball came loose, and T.J. Watt scooped it up at the Pittsburgh thirty-eight. That's the season in one play: pressure, takeaway, field flipped. In the Wild Card against Houston, they didn't generate them — and the defense had nothing else to fall back on.

And the run defense. This one's quieter and rougher than the pass defense numbers. Rushing expected points added allowed sat right around even on the year — average — and four hundred and forty-three carries against says teams were comfortable running on them. No single linebacker or interior lineman showed up as the season-long anchor in the splash-play data the way the pass rushers did. The run defense held up enough to win ten games but never became a strength. League-average front, elite pass-rush spikes, takeaway-dependent — and when November and December turned into January, the formula stopped working.