The Steelers' Quarterback Succession Crisis: How Pittsburgh's Most Storied Franchise Lost Its Way in the Post-Roethlisberger Era

There is something uniquely painful about watching a great franchise lose its way, and if you have paid close attention to the Pittsburgh Steelers over the past six seasons, you understand exactly what I mean. This is not a team that has been ravaged by scandal or mismanagement in the classical sense. The Steelers still employ one of the finest head coaches in football history in Mike Tomlin. Their front office remains fundamentally sound. Their organizational infrastructure is as stable as any in the NFL. And yet, the quarterback position, that most critical nexus of modern football, has become something of a revolving door of disappointment, a carousel of hope and failure that would be comical if it were not so genuinely tragic for a fanbase that once took it entirely for granted that they would have quality quarterback play, year in and year out.

When Ben Roethlisberger retired following the 2021 season, the Steelers were faced with a moment that every dynasty eventually encounters. A generational player, one who had defined an era, was leaving the building. Roethlisberger, for all his flaws and the legitimate criticisms that have dogged his legacy, was a competitor of rare caliber. He dragged teams to playoff appearances that had no right being there. He won a Super Bowl ring in his second season in the league. He threw for over 60,000 yards in a Steelers uniform. He was, in the truest sense, a Steeler, and the organization knew that replacing him would be the great challenge of the Tomlin era.

The first major decision came in 2022, and it remains one of the more perplexing personnel calls in recent Steelers history. The organization traded for Mitch Trubisky, a quarterback who had spent the previous season backing up Patrick Mahomes in Kansas City. Now, I understand the logic on some level. Trubisky had been a first overall pick in 2017. He had shown flashes in Chicago, despite an overall disappointing tenure with the Bears. And he came cheap, which is always attractive to a front office. But here is where the evaluation broke down, and this is crucial to understanding the broader dysfunction that has followed. The Steelers seemed to be banking on continuity and relative safety rather than genuine optimism about Trubisky's ceiling as a starting quarterback.

Trubisky's 2022 season was a study in mediocrity masquerading as competence. He threw 20 touchdowns and 10 interceptions over 14 starts, numbers that sound almost respectable until you understand the context of the Steelers' offense, which was built around a dominant run game and a defense that was supposed to carry them through November and December. What became clear very quickly was that Trubisky was a bridge quarterback, and not even a particularly good one. The Steelers limped to an 8-9 record that year, and while they did win their division, it was more a function of the rest of the AFC North stumbling than any particular excellence on their part. The season felt less like a return to Steelers football and more like watching a talented team squander its opportunity.

What made the Trubisky experiment particularly vexing was what it represented philosophically. The Steelers had decided to be conservative in their approach to finding their next franchise quarterback. Rather than swinging for the fences in the draft, or making a bold trade for a proven commodity, they had chosen the safe route. This is not inherently unreasonable, but it becomes problematic when you are already sitting on a talented roster with a Hall of Fame coach. You cannot afford to waste even a single season of that window with a quarterback you do not genuinely believe in.

The 2023 offseason presented what should have been a clearer path forward. The Steelers had the opportunity to invest serious draft capital in a young quarterback prospect. The quarterback class that year was loaded with potential. Will Levis, C.J. Stroud, Anthony Richardson, and Bryce Young were all prospects with genuine first-round pedigree. And yet, instead of committing to one of these young players, the Steelers made a sideways move, acquiring Russell Wilson, the former Seattle Seahawks franchise cornerstone who had fallen out of favor in both Seattle and Denver. Wilson was a proven winner, a Super Bowl champion, someone with legitimate credentials. But by 2023, Wilson was also 34 years old, coming off one of the worst seasons of his career in Denver, and carrying with him a bloated contract that had already begun to constrain the franchise that traded for him.

The decision to bring in Wilson felt like the action of a front office that had lost confidence in its own evaluation process. It was not the move of a franchise that had a clear vision for where it wanted to go. Instead, it felt reactive, even desperate. Here was a team with genuine talent elsewhere on the roster, with a coach who was still at the peak of his powers, and instead of investing in their future quarterback, they were recycling a quarterback from someone else's junkyard. Wilson's season in Pittsburgh was mercifully brief. He threw 12 touchdowns and 8 interceptions in 10 games before an injury ended his campaign. The Steelers turned to backup Kenny Pickett, a third-round draft pick from 2022 who had been on the roster all along, waiting for his opportunity.

This brings us to perhaps the most frustrating element of the entire succession saga. In 2022, the Steelers had selected Kenny Pickett, a quarterback from the University of Pittsburgh, in the third round of the draft. Pickett was a productive college player, someone with leadership qualities and a genuine understanding of the Rooney Rule spirit, being a local kid coming home to wear the black and gold. But instead of committing to developing him, instead of giving him real opportunity to grow, the Steelers had essentially benched him and gone shopping. This is the real tragedy here. Not that Pickett has necessarily failed, but that the organization never seemed to believe in him enough to actually develop him properly. He was treated as an afterthought when he should have been the focal point of a patient, deliberate plan.

When Pickett was finally forced into action, he showed flashes of competence mixed with the kind of inconsistency you would expect from a young player who had not been given a real opportunity to grow in game situations. He threw more interceptions than touchdowns in limited action. He was neither impressive enough to inspire confidence nor bad enough to completely dismiss. He was, in short, exactly what you would expect from a young quarterback who had been shuffled around and deprioritized by his own organization. The Steelers went 8-9 in 2023, again winning their division by the grace of a weak conference, and again failing to compete in January when it truly mattered.

Now, as we look toward the future, the Steelers face a reckoning. They can continue down this path of uncertainty, hoping that lightning strikes and one of these experimental quarterbacks suddenly becomes elite. They can invest draft capital in another young prospect. Or they can make a more dramatic move to acquire a proven starting quarterback through trade. But whatever path they choose, they must first acknowledge a fundamental truth about the past six years. This has not been a period of bad luck or cosmic misfortune. This has been a period of poor decision-making, of organizational hesitation, of a franchise that clearly lost confidence in its own ability to evaluate the quarterback position.

The Steelers still have the pieces in place to win. Their defense is respectable. Their running game is solid. Mike Tomlin is still the coach. But every single month that passes without clarity at the quarterback position is a month when they are not genuinely competing for championships. That is the cost of this extended period of indecision, and that is why it must end.