A Letter From the Editor: It is almost time for the 2025 Steelers to blaze their own trail
This year on the Saturday before Easter, my family and I were relaxing in our basement watching television. My wife and I looked at the time and were shocked it was much later than usual for the kids to be up, so we ushered them upstairs to brush their teeth and get themselves ready for bed.
During this very mundane nighttime ritual we noticed something was different. Not within our house, but outside. Being early spring, we had our windows cracked and suddenly we heard a loud whistling sound and the curtains starting to be sucked outward.
We quickly got everyone downstairs, and in about 10 minutes the storm was over. As we walked upstairs we were without power, but the house seemed to be intact. I grabbed a flashlight and walked to our back windows and noticed while our house was okay, our yard was not. Giant pine trees which line the property between our yard and our neighbors had almost been severed by the sheering winds and were now down in our yard.
Thankfully, the trees didn’t hit our house, but our yard was an absolute mess. We were without power for over four days, with lines down in our back yard, and some of our neighbors’ houses/properties were even worse than ours. Over the next several weeks, it was an ongoing clean-up around the neighborhood. The sound of generators and chainsaws were more common than birds chirping. Slowly, but surely, things got back to normal.
For our yard specifically, it gave us an opportunity to start fresh. The trees cleared way for an expanded garden, and a tree my wife has wanted to take down for years was taken down by Mother Nature.
If you’ve read this far, you are probably wondering what this has to do with the Pittsburgh Steelers?
As the calendar turns from June to July, there are only two full weeks of July before the 2025 Steelers will get to blaze their own trail. When it comes to how the story about the mayhem in my backyard connects with the Steelers, if you were to walk in my back yard now you would never know there was ever a storm. Unless you saw the severed trees which are still alive and standing, you don’t see any debris or chaos from the event.
There are a lot of fans who are still upset about the 2024 season and how it ended. The 6-2 start, the 10-3 record, and the precipitous drop off to a 10-7 finish before the season ending with a dramatic thud in the Wild Card Round vs. the Ravens. But the horrendous end of last season doesn’t equate to continued disaster in 2025. The current team and coaching staff deserves a chance to learn from last year’s disappointments, and prepare to avoid those this season.
There will be the skeptics, who don’t believe anything will change. Those are likely the same fans who believe Mike Tomlin led teams will always fall into the same struggles and pitfalls we’ve seen the past several years. However, the turnover from the 2024 season, from a roster standpoint, absolutely deserves plenty of attention as the organization prepares for their annual trip to Saint Vincent College.
The Steelers experienced over 30% roster turnover from 2024 to 2025, and that percentage is a remarkable number in today’s NFL standards. You just don’t see teams parting ways with players who have contributed to the team the previous year in mass quantities. Yet that’s exactly what the Steelers did. Would it be fair to assume the new roster, which will look drastically different from last year, will be the same as last year? Personally, I don’t believe that to be fair.
Even if you are someone who sees all signs as pointing to disaster lurking around the corner, there is also a chance the 2025 Steelers are able to completely clean up the mess which happened at the end of last season. Perhaps even to have things improved before the next season.
Just like my back yard if you were to look at it now in the summer.
Anything is possible, and for me I choose to be optimistic for the 2025 Steelers to show last season was just last season, and this upcoming season will be something different…in a good way.
Unfortunately my optimism has fallen by the wayside with what has transpired over almost a decade now. The final straw was buying in on the hoopla and hype from the Kenny Pickett Era. That completely drained my last bit of optimism. Not placing blame on anyone, although there are many failures from that error…..I mean era, but I blame myself and that centered around the optimism that I often carried into each season.
As the calendar turns and training camp nears, I now only possess a wait and see approach. It doesn’t mean I don’t fully engulf myself into what ever is Black and Gold but there is very little rah rah left in me. Maybe this changes some as the pads get popping and camp reports start to unfold but it still feels flat. The same rhetoric continues to fly out of mouths with no new results. Sure 2025 can be different but is there anyone willing to put a substantial amount of money on it. I’m saying, probably not?
I’m not trying to rain on anyone’s parade. I respect the right of those who believe that after a decade(almost) of silence something different will transpire. The odds are certainly in your favor that a playoff win will eventually happen. But once again are you willing to put something of significance on it. For the most part, Steeler Nation is drained, they need a change. No, a shiny new offensive minded head coach may not provide all the answers but by god there would be some excitement. Even as camp approaches everything still feels like flat…..slow and steady I guess?
And for the record, this is not a dig at the author. And thanks for adding a personal story/touch in your writings. As you know it means a good deal to some of us. Glad it was only the yard that was damaged.
Go Steelers and for one year…. Go Aaron Rodgers…..good luck with the run right and run left and chuck it approach. Or does Tomlin finally stop lying about living in his fears? BAZINGA
Reasonable approach PB56, though I’d add good luck with the sticky man defense, stout run defense, and sacking the other teams’ QBs. Dunno about that Tomlin thing, that would seem to require a miracle… but ’84 and ’89 did both happen, I bear witness. Dufresne reminds us hope is a good thing.
Oh I agree there are many questions concerning this team. What’s the old saying crap in one hand a hope in the other and see what fills up faster. LOL
Cool.