The NFLPA team report cards weren’t supposed to be publicly revealed this year, but they predictably got leaked Thursday. And the Pittsburgh Steelers again found themselves in a not-so-flattering light. They graded out terribly, ranking dead last, leading Mike Florio to wonder if trouble could be on the way for Pittsburgh.
“I’m reluctant to say this, but we always speak truth,” Florio said Friday on his Pro Football Talk podcast. “There’s a chance the Steelers are low-key cheap. There’s a chance the Steelers are low-key dysfunctional. There’s a chance that Mike Tomlin covered up a lot of stuff in Pittsburgh by his coaching abilities over the last 19 years.
“And there’s a chance the cupboard is largely bare in Pittsburgh and they’re not gonna have the tools to fill it up again. There’s a chance that, moving forward, this is gonna be a problem in Pittsburgh and they’re gonna be left in the dust in the AFC North.”
While Tomlin stepped down after the 2025 season, he was one of the few bright spots for the Steelers on the annual NFLPA report card, getting an A grade. Some fans wanted him gone, but he wasn’t the cause for many of their issues, at least according to this report.
The Steelers graded poorly in categories such as Home Game Field, Locker Room, and Team Ownership. Tomlin wasn’t in control of any of those things, and Art Rooney II seems more to blame there. He has received a lot of flak from fans this offseason, and this report isn’t going to help that.
The Rooney family has long been touted as one of the NFL’s best ownership groups. However, perhaps their old-school way of doing things needs a slight update. The factors they scored low in aren’t the only ones that lead to success. It all adds up, though. The Steelers’ perceived poor facilities could mean a lot during free agency.
Do these grades mean that the other AFC North teams are going to start running laps around the Steelers? No. The Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals didn’t fare much better. They ranked 30th and 28th overall, respectively. They’ve got their own problems to worry about.
The Baltimore Ravens landed at 12, but they’ve still got issues, which is why they missed the playoffs last season. However, they also have a new head coach, so perhaps they’ll finally live up to their potential.
These grades seem to back up at least part of what Florio is saying. They don’t mean that the team is dysfunctional, but some changes need to be made. The Steelers are supposed to be one of the best organizations in the league. Ranking dead last in this survey doesn’t reflect that.
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