Steelers 'didn't like what they saw' from big-time defender early in 2025 season

The Pittsburgh Steelers have made quite a few moves so far this offseason. With a new coaching staff and a potentially new quarterback, this is a very pivotal season to see if the Steelers trend up, trend down or stay mediocre, like they've been for almost a decade now. There are a ton of options out there, but there are even more internal factors to consider with some of these big decisions. 

While making an appearance on "The North Shore Drive Podcast," insider Ray Fittipaldo brought up one internal issue that seems to be affecting what the Steelers are doing at the linebacker position. 

"You better think that Payton Wilson is that guy in the middle," Fittipaldo said. "And last year, [the Steelers] didn't think that because they gave Payton Wilson every opportunity to be a three-down linebacker, and they just didn't like what they saw in terms of the run defense early in the season."

There have been questions about how willing the Steelers are to move on from Patrick Queen. Fittipaldo theorizes that they may want to keep him due to the lackluster run-stopping ability of Payton Wilson. After a very strong rookie season, he seemed to have a bit of a sophomore slump in 2025, especially in the first half of the season when the team was giving up chunk plays ad nauseum. 

The Steelers signed Malik Harrison to be their run-stuffing linebacker that offseason, but he got injured in Week 1 and was later put on injured reserve. That meant that Pittsburgh had to rely on Wilson to get the job done and fill his shoes while playing the role of a three-down linebacker, and it did not work well to start off. There were very obvious issues, and his lack of gap integrity seemed to be one of the big ones. 

However, the Steelers did make a change in philosophy in the middle of the season to switch to a more simplified game plan, and it worked much better than what they started out with. Harrison did eventually come back and take up more reps on running downs, but Wilson still got the bulk of the reps, as he had 63% of the defensive snaps, while also acting as the interim special teams captain. 

The hope with the new coaching staff is that they can build a defensive scheme that is built more toward the players' strengths than the previous one, which could help Wilson develop in his third year. For now, they likely want to see how he does before making the decision to promote him to defensive quarterback and let him play every single snap in every single game, which is why they don't want to let Queen go just yet.

Steelers' holdover is bad news for Payton Wilson

The Steelers only have two coaches that were a part of the previous staff. One of them is linebackers coach Scott McCurley, who will be in his second season with that title for Pittsburgh. He did not see Wilson's electric rookie campaign; he only saw the down year of 2025, so he is likely relaying all that information to the new defensive staff.

If Fittipaldo's report is true, it is very likely that McCurley was one of the many individuals who did not like what he saw out of Wilson when he did have to play every snap early on in the season. Many reports did say that they loved what they saw out of him in coverage, and he is expected to keep that role as Harrison will likely return for another year to help shut down the run game.