With every setback during the 2025 NFL season, longtime Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin seems to lose supporters.
Steelers insider Mark Kaboly didn’t criticize Tomlin as much as many other pundits after the team fell to 6-5 with a loss to the Chicago Bears on Sunday. But Kaboly made one thing very clear — he’s out on the idea the Steelers are a contender this season.
“I may have been the last holdout over this notion, but … the Steelers are a 9-8 team, at best,” wrote Kaboly on Monday.
“They are an average team that tends to frustrate the hell out of anybody who is vested in them, not because of a simple loss to a now 8-3 Bears team on the road by a field goal, but they way they go about it.
“The defense plays well, but the offense stinks.
“The offense plays well, but then the defense stinks.
“The defense shuts down teams like the Patriots, Colts, and Bengals, but gets railroaded by the Bengals, Chargers, and Bears.
“It’s just not game-to-game. It’s series-to-series (sometimes) and even play-to-play.
“What version of the Pittsburgh Steelers are you going to get? Good luck with that one.”
To Kaboly’s point about inconsistency, the Steelers have alternated wins and losses the past four weeks. But overall, they’ve lost four of their past six games.
Meanwhile, the Baltimore Ravens have won five in a row to move into first place ahead of the Steelers in the AFC North via a tiebreaker.
Steelers’ Inconsistency Proves They Aren’t Contenders
In the NFL, pretty much every team has talent. Throughout a 17-game season, each team at least shows flashes of that talent.
But in professional sports, consistency is key. Eliminating the really poor performing days is a big recipe for success.
The Steelers aren’t doing that this season. In a lot of ways, the team is showcasing as much inconsistency as it ever has under Tomlin. That’s also really saying something given that inconsistency has become commonplace for the organization since it last won a playoff game in January 2017.
Kaboly argued that’s why he no longer believes in the 2025 Steelers.
“To me, that is the definition of average.
“The 2025 Pittsburgh Steelers are an inconsistent team, and inconsistent teams are, to me, teams that just aren’t very good. Not good but not bad,” wrote Kaboly.
“The Steelers just aren’t very good even though everything on paper suggests they should be, and that’s pretty much not debatable at this point.”
Since 2021, quarterback play has been an issue for the Steelers. The organization can largely blame its up-and-down offense on that position.
But the roller coaster on defense is rather inexcusable. The Steelers are spending about $160 million on that side of the ball this season. Over the Cap has it ranked as the most expensive defense in the league.
Steelers Doing ‘Historic’ Bad Things on Defense
Before the season began, Tomlin argued the Steelers could do “historic things” on defense. The coach, of course, was talking about being historically great.
Instead, the unit is making bad history.
Although also wildly inconsistent, the Steelers defense has arguably been just flat out bad more often than not in 2025. In Week 12, the unit gave up more than 30 points for the fifth time this season.
That’s tied for the most 30-point games the Steelers have allowed in a season under Tomlin. The last time the Steelers yielded six 30-point games on defense was 2002.
Just about every Pittsburgh player who spoke to the media after losing to the Bears emphasized that the unit has the talent to be elite. Based on his preseason comments, Tomlin would certainly agree.
But after 12 weeks, it’s getting more difficult to find pundits who believe the Steelers defense, and the team overall, will reach its potential. Kaboly, who many fans will recognize as a longtime support of the current organization’s regime, is no longer one of those last remaining believers.
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