As the league trends towards offense, the Pittsburgh Steelers have done things a little differently over the last decade with most of their large investments coming on the defensive side of the ball. It won’t come as a surprise to anybody, but the Steelers once again have the league’s most expensive defense in terms of 2025 cap hits, according to The 33rd Team via data from Over The Cap.
Not only are they the most expensive, but they are 17.1 percent more expensive than the next team on that list. The Steelers have $178 million in cap space tied up in their defense in 2025 with the Giants a distant second at $152 million.
Over 40 percent of the Steelers’ total is tied up in three players. T.J. Watt leads the way with a $30.4 million cap hit, followed by Minkah Fitzpatrick at $22.3 million and Cameron Heyward at $19.6 million. Alex Highsmith, Patrick Queen and Darius Slay round out the other significant cap hits and the majority of that $178 total overall.
For the first several games of the 2024 season, the Steelers appeared to be getting their money’s worth with a historically great pace for the defense. That quickly fell apart down the stretch and really reached a low point with a five-game losing streak to end the season in the Wild Card round of the playoffs. Their defense was just as much to blame as the offense for the collapse.
Of those top six cap hits, Watt had a good season but fell off late, Fitzpatrick has been steady but unremarkable, Highsmith was hurt for much of the season and Queen largely failed to live up to his contract in year one. Heyward far exceeded expectations and of course Slay is new to the team. Given the performance of the highest paid players last season, it’s no wonder the team fell apart down the stretch.
GM Omar Khan said the team is “definitely not satisfied” with the return on investment from their costly defense at the combine this year. They are hoping that the additions of Juan Thornhill, Slay, Derrick Harmon, Yahya Black, Brandin Echols, Malik Harrison and others can help round the unit into form. And it certainly wouldn’t hurt to have the stars play up to their salaries in 2025.
The offense has slightly more money invested in it this time around with the trade to acquire WR DK Metcalf and the big-money extension they gave him. And Aaron Rodgers is getting paid significantly more than Russell Wilson and Justin Fields from last season even if his contract is near the bottom of the starting QB market. Even still, the defense is clearly the unit they are expecting to carry the show.
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