The Steelers didn’t address a notable weakness from last season in the 2025 NFL Draft.

And no one really minded.

Despite having offensive line struggles in 2024, Pittsburgh didn’t reinforce the group much at all headed into the 2025 season.

In fairness, the Steelers' O-line was far from the league’s worst in 2024, but they certainly weren’t good. Last season, Pittsburgh was in the bottom half of the NFL when it came to telling statistics such as rushing yards before contact, quarterback pressure rate, and sack rate allowed, per NFL Plus. Pro Football Reference has even worse rankings for the team.

If you watched the Steelers in 2024, the eye test backs all those statistics up.

There were moments — rookie center Zach Frazier looked great; left tackle Dan Moore Jr. had flashes of good play — but instead of building up the group even more ahead of the 2025 season, Pittsburgh lost depth.

Two former starting linemen walked in free agency following the season. Moore signed a four-year, $82 million contract with the Tennessee Titans, and offensive guard James Daniels, who missed most of the 2024 season with a torn Achilles, went to the Dolphins on a three-year, $24 million deal.

The Steelers had a succession plan for both players, but losing two starting-capable linemen and drafting none is worth noting.

In 2025, Daniels will be replaced by the same player who replaced him in 2024: Mason McCormick.

McCormick, drafted in the fourth round in 2024, is one of many youthful talents on the Steelers' O-line’s starting five. Outside of veteran guard Isaac Seumalo, the rest of the group was drafted in 2023 or later.

That inexperience is one of the main reasons why the Steelers are giving the offensive line another chance in 2025: Their best football is still ahead of them.

Broderick Jones, who looks to be replacing Moore at left tackle, has spent his two-year NFL career on the right side of the line and is finally getting the chance to switch back to his natural position. Frazier is already a quality center, but he was still a rookie in 2024.

McCormick showed potential last year, but had to jump from FCS football to NFL defenses in just a few months. And right tackle Troy Fautanu didn’t even get one full NFL game under his belt before he suffered a season-ending knee injury in Week 2. He did look promising, though.

There’s not a lot we know about this group. The starting lineup of Jones-Seumalo-Frazier-McCormick-Fautanu has never appeared in a regular season game. It’s a safe bet that the interior of the line will be a strength, but both tackles — one of the most important positions in the sport — come with questions.

But there’s reason to believe the results could be good, or at least, better than last year. That’s arguably the biggest reason why the Steelers stayed put at O-line in the 2025 offseason: They’ve invested a lot of resources into this positional group already.

Jones and Fautanu were the team’s first-round draft picks in 2023 and 2024, respectively. Frazier was a second-round selection. Seumalo is the 23rd highest-paid guard in the league. Only McCormick was a Day 3 pick, and he was picked in the middle of the fourth round.

It’s an observation more than a critique. Instead of spending big on the offensive line for a third straight year in 2025, Steelers general manager Omar Khan addressed other roster needs. He’s betting that the O-line he built over the last two seasons is ready to stand on its own.

But can it? That’s near-impossible to answer in May. Offensive line play is tricky to predict. You can analyze the individual players, but the O-line has to play cohesively as a unit and injuries can turn everything on its head.

Besides losing Fautanu and Daniels to season-ending injuries early last year, Frazier missed two games with an ankle injury. McCormick missed the team’s playoff matchup with a broken hand. Seumalo missed four games with a pectoral injury, and Jones dealt with an elbow injury for most of the year.

And without Daniels and Moore in 2025 — no matter how you felt about them as players — the Steelers’ offensive line looks even thinner than it was last season.

Entering 2025, the Steelers' backups at offensive line are as follows:

Calvin Anderson (OT) — re-signed this offseason (two years, $4 million)
Dylan Cook (OT)
Spencer Anderson (OG)
Ryan McCollum (C)
Max Scharping (OG) — re-signed this offseason (one year, $1.3 million)
Lecitus Smith (OG) — signed this offseason (one year, 1.03 million)
Doug Nester (OG)
Steven Jones (OG)
Aiden Williams (OG) — undrafted free agent signing

Anderson’s two-year deal signifies some trust in him as the team’s swing tackle (he’s still just the 101st-highest-paid tackle in the league) but the rest of the group have cuttable salaries and a lack of recent starts or draft pedigree.

There could be some training camp surprises, but the Steelers’ O-line is not a deep group entering 2025 despite last year’s injury issues.

Paired with a young, largely unproven starting five, the Steelers offensive line needs a lot of things to go right in 2025 to make the sort of improvement needed.

If it doesn’t, it might not be the end of the word. If the Steelers don’t end up landing Aaron Rodgers (and even if they do), the quarterback position will be a much bigger question mark and rudder for the season.

However, in Arthur Smith’s run-heavy offense and on a team that is looking to elevate a carousel of quarterbacks in the near future, a good offensive line is paramount for success. One of the bigger stories this year will be if much-maligned offensive line coach Pat Meyer can develop a group that hasn’t found consistency during his time with the team.

The depth is a question, but Khan and the Steelers front office have built a high-pedigree starting five with the talent to live up to expectations. By largely ignoring the O-line over the offseason, the team is counting on Jones, Seumalo, Frazier, McCormick, and Fautanu without many alternatives.

In 2025, we’ll see if the bet pays off.