Unpopular Opinion: It’s impossible to get the Steelers preseason playing time right

When the Pittsburgh Steelers are in the dreaded long offseason, there are plenty of ideas to debate. As part of the triumphant trio on the Steelers Preview podcast, I’ve been known to often give a “Dave answer“ to various things as I often like to argue both sides of an issue. With this in mind, a new weekly segment has been born… Unpopular opinion.

There are plenty of arguments both for and against the Pittsburgh Steelers that might not go along with the majority of fans. Oftentimes I believe in these arguments, while other times I simply like to pose a counter argument for ones that are taking it too much to the extreme. For this reason, I’m going to offer some points about the Pittsburgh Steelers that go against the general fan narrative, or at least how I have heard things.

Next up is figuring out the magic formula for preseason playing time…

It’s impossible to get the Steelers preseason playing time right

This is a topic that will never make everybody happy. Not only that, no matter what the Steelers do, if anything doesn’t work out perfectly it will be a source of criticism.

But that criticism is due to hindsight being 20/20.

Personally, I thought the Steelers should have every player, outside maybe Cam Heyward and T.J. Watt who have been with the team for many seasons, play at least a series or two in the preseason. But if Aaron Rodgers or DK Metcalf played 10 snaps in one game and one of them suffers an injury, those who felt they shouldn’t play at all would start screaming, “I told you so!“

But neither of them played in the preseason. Now, the first errant pass or interception by Rodgers, the first drop by Metcalf, or a play where the two of them just don’t seem to be on the same page will be met with some in Steelers’ Nation belting out the “I told you so!“ chant. Unfortunately, the odds of none of those situations happening in Week 1 and both players playing a perfect game are pretty low. So no matter how things play out with what the Steelers did with preseason playing time, there’s going to be some criticism.

Then there’s Derrick Harmon.

I can’t remember a time where a Steelers rookie did not play in an individual preseason game, unless they were injured or too far down the depth chart, to get the opportunity. Maybe someone else can give me an example, but I can’t think of one off the top of my head, and preseason data is extremely difficult to find. So playing Harmon and giving him valuable NFL experience isn’t a crazy idea. After playing 32 snaps in the first game and 23 in Week 2 of the preseason, Harmon was injured on his 14th snap of the game. Yet I’ve seen the comments on social media or even on our own podcasts at SCN how the Steelers were completely stupid for having him on the field at that point. But were they?

Sometimes we need to calm down the emotions and look at reality. It wasn’t crazy for Derrick Harmon to finish up that series or even maybe get a couple more snaps before being done for the day. Was he probably close to the end? Yes. Can the Steelers bubble wrap every player who they expect to contribute in 2025 during the preseason. No they can’t. And is that really better for the player?

If only it was easy as the T.J. Watt situation in 2021. Granted the Steelers didn’t really have a choice to play him in the preseason as he was holding in for a new contract. But the outcome is undeniable. Watt did not play a single preseason snap, yet in Week 1 he produced 2.0 sacks, a tackle for loss, five quarterback hits, and a forced fumble in a upset win over the Buffalo Bills.

So is it possible for players to not play at all in the preseason, reduce the risk of injury, and hit the ground running to start the season? T.J. Watt shows that it is. But to have every player have that kind of result every season is never going to happen. This is why the Steelers can’t ever possibly get it completely correct.

So why even bother? The Steelers just need to do whatever they think is best for each individual player based on the information they have. But this is what they always do. Unfortunately, we, the fans, take the limited information we have and then want to say how the Steelers did it wrong.

I would be completely fine if we had a 2020 situation every preseason. Trust me, I don’t want the protocols and everything else from that year and no fans in the stands, but the Steelers played no preseason games, along with the rest of the NFL, and the first half of that season worked out just fine. It doesn’t mean it would happen that way again if there were no preseason games. I do enjoy the process of watching the bottom half of the 90-man roster fight for their NFL lives, but once the rosters get cut down to 53 players the preseason for me is an afterthought.

The whole point of this exercise wasn’t to try to say the Steelers should have done things one way or another when it came to players in the preseason. We can all have our opinions of what we thought might have been best. But things working out one way or another does not mean that all of our thinking is correct. It’s a difficult task to balance readiness for regular season success and potential injury due to playing in a meaningless game. No team is ever going to get it completely right.

To hear the latest Unpopular Opinion podcast, check it out in the player below. Be sure to check back for this podcast every Sunday morning during the Steelers offseason.