Month: July 2025

Looking back on Steelers football, one decade ago.

Can you name a better offseason activity than naming random NFL players from the past? No, no you can’t.

Earlier this year, I solicited some article ideas from BTSC readers, and one of them was a “where are they now” piece on past Steelers. Believe it or not, 2015 was a decade ago, and that felt like a natural spot to look back on from 2025.

In that season, the Steelers finished 10-6 and placed second in the AFC North behind the 12-4 Cincinnati Bengals. However, the Steelers would knock the Bengals out of the Wild Card round (the Martavis Bryant flip catch game) before losing to the eventual Super Bowl champion Denver Broncos in the Divisional round.

In the first half of this series, we’ll be looking at the major offensive contributors on that team. You can view statistics, full rosters, and more on Pro Football Reference. Here’s what they’re up to now:

QB Ben Roethlisberger (3,938 passing yards, 21 passing touchdowns)

• Retired from the NFL following the 2021 season.
• The Steelers’ all-time leader in just about every passing stat; fifth-most passing yards and eight-most passing touchdowns in NFL history.
• Currently co-hosts the Footbahlin with Ben Roethlisberger podcast on YouTube.
• Roethlisberger’s BigBen7.com website posts updates regarding the former quarterback’s announcements and community events.

RB DeAngelo Williams (907 rushing yards, 11 touchdowns)

Photo by Joe Sargent/Getty Images

• Last played in 2016; officially retired in 2018.
• Started most of 2015 for the Steelers due to Le’Veon Bell missing time with a suspension to open the season and a Nov. 1 season-ending torn MCL.
• Brief stint as a professional wrestler post-NFL.
• Started the The DeAngelo Williams Foundation in 2006, which seeks “to develop and seek initiatives to support the eradication of breast cancer through preventative care and research.” The organization’s sixth annual “DeAthlon” fundraiser will take place Aug. 2.

RB Le’Veon Bell (556 rushing yards, three touchdowns)

• Appeared in just six games in 2015 due to suspension and injury.
• Bell’s last season with the Steelers would be 2017. He’d sit out the 2018 season due to a contract dispute before signing with the New York Jets as a free agent in 2019. He then spent time with the Chiefs, Ravens, and Buccaneers, last playing in 2021.
• During the end of his NFL career and afterwards, Bell has dabbled in professional boxing as recently as 2024.
• Started releasing rap music in 2018 with “Target.” His latest is the Donald Trump-themed 2025 single “They Mad.” He releases some of his music and various livestreams, including competitive gaming, on his YouTube channel.
• Bell was found liable in March to pay a female relative $25 million in damages in a sexual abuse case. Bell has denied the allegations.

WR Antonio Brown (136 catches, 1,834 yards, 10 touchdowns)

Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images

• Last played in 2021, ending his career with the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Was traded from the Steelers to the Raiders in 2019 but never played.
• Won a Super Bowl ring with the Buccaneers in the 2020-21 season.
• Finished his Steelers career second all-time in most receiving stats behind Hines Ward.
• In June, Brown was wanted for attempted murder in Miami. His whereabouts and current legal situation remain unclear. Since his 2018 season, Brown’s career has been once scandal after the next.

WR Markus Wheaton (44 catches, 749 receiving yards, five touchdowns)

• After his time with the Steelers, Wheaton spent one year with the Chicago Bears and another with the Philadelphia Eagles. He last played in 2018.
• Put up 201 yards against the Legion of Boom in 2015.
• Recently, he talked about the serious injuries he suffered in the NFL: “My brain is a little messed up.”
• Currently is a managing partner for Western Skies Landscaping in his hometown of Phoenix, Arizona.

WR Martavis Bryant (50 catches, 765 receiving yards, six touchdowns)

• Was suspended the entirety of the 2016 season for violating the NFL’s substance-abuse policy.
• Traded to the Raiders in 2018. He’s since bounced around multiple leagues and teams: the CFL’s Toronto Argonauts and Edmonton Elks, the Indoor Football League’s Massachusetts Pirates, the Fan-Controlled Football League’s FCF Beasts, and the XFL’s Vegas Vipers.
• Recently spent time on the Dallas Cowboys’ practice squad (2023) and the Washington Commanders (August 2024). He’s currently unsigned, but hasn’t retired. He’s 33 years old.

TE Heath Miller (60 catches, 535 receiving yards, two touchdowns)

Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

• 2015 would be Miller’s last season in the NFL. He retired in February of 2016.
• This 2020 feature on Miller notes he lives in Virginia with his wife and four children. He stays out of the spotlight: “I’ve never really felt comfortable being the guy with the attention thrust on me and that’s why I don’t really do a lot of interviews or stuff like that.”
• Miller, the Steelers’ all-time leader for most tight end statistics, was inducted into the team’s Hall of Honor in 2022.

TE Matt Spaeth (Two catches, 10 receiving yards)

Photo by Joe Sargent/Getty Images

• 2015 was also Spaeth’s last NFL season; he’d be released in 2016 with a failed physical.
• Spaeth has kept a low profile since his NFL days, but he’s still connected with the Steelers organization and his former teammates.
• Per a 2018 interview with Steelers Takeaways, Spaeth sells real estate in North Hills.

LT Alejandro Villanueva (10 starts)

• 2015 marked Villanueva’s first time appearing in regular season NFL games after going undrafted in 2010. Over those five years, he served as an Army ranger.
• He’d play in the NFL as a starting tackle through 2021, officially retiring in 2022 after a one-and-done year with the Baltimore Ravens.
• Earned his MBA from Carnegie Mellon in 2019.
• Now a fruit farmer in Homestead, Florida per an interview with Steelers Takeaways. He makes the odd podcast appearance, too.

LG Ramon Foster (16 starts)

• Last played in 2019; retired in 2020 after playing his entire 11-year career with the Steelers.
• He currently hosts the Ramon Foster Steelers Show for DK Pittsburgh Sports, and co-hosts the “Ramon and Will” show for 104.5 The Zone, a radio station in Tennessee.
• Foster was recently named to Vol Network’s 2025 Tennessee Volunteers football broadcast team as an analyst. He played college football at Tennessee.
• Still involved in the NFLPA; Foster was the officer who upheld Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair’s suspension in 2024.

C Cody Wallace (16 starts)

• Started entire season as Maurkice Pouncey missed 2015 with a broken fibula.
• 2015 would be Wallace’s last year in the NFL. He was hurt in 2016 and never made it back on the field.
• Per a 2020 interview with Steelers Takeaways, Wallace partnered with his brother-in-law to start a termite inspection company in California.

RG David DeCastro (16 starts)

• DeCastro’s last NFL season was 2020. The Steelers cut him in 2021 with a non-football injury designation after six consecutive Pro Bowls.
• He’s now an investor in the medical marijuana company Whole Plants LLC, alongside former Steelers Ben Roethlisberger and Bud Dupree. DeCastro was the applicant for the Whole Plants location in Ross Township, Pennsylvania, that was approved in March despite some controversy.

RT Marcus Gilbert (16 starts)

• Gilbert played with the Steelers through the 2018 season. He was traded to the Arizona Cardinals ahead of the 2019 season, but dealt with injuries and never appeared in a game. He retired in 2021.
• Married Republican political figure Madison Geisotto in 2021.
• This 2019 article from ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler centers on how therapy helped Gilbert deal with the pressures and criticisms of playing in the NFL.

Other notable Steelers on offense in 2015:

• WR Darrius Heyward-Bey
• FB Roosevelt Nix
• C Doug Legursky
• G Chris Hubbard (Last played in 2024 — still an active free agent)
• QB Landry Jones
• TE Jesse James
• LT Kelvin Beachum (Still in the NFL! Now on the Cardinals)
• C Maurkice Pouncey (missed season)
• WR Sammie Coates
• QB Mike Vick (started three games!)

Stay tuned for part two: defense — coming soon!

Think you can figure out which Steelers player we’re talking about? You’ll get five clues to figure him out in our new guessing game!

Hey Steelers fans! We’re back for another day of the Behind the Steel Curtain in-5 daily trivia game. Game instructions are at the bottom if you’re new to the game! Feel free to share your results in the comments and feedback in this Google Form.

Today’s Behind the Steel Curtain in-5 game

If you can’t see the game due to Apple News or another service, click this game article.

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Behind the Steel Curtain in-5 instructions

The goal of the game is to guess the correct Steelers player with the help of up to five clues. We’ll mix in BOTH ACTIVE AND RETIRED PLAYERS. It won’t be easy to figure it out in one or two guesses, but some of you might be able to nail it.

After you correctly guess the player, you can click “Share Results” to share how you did down in the comments and on social media. We won’t go into other details about the game as we’d like your feedback on it. How it plays, what you think of it, the difficulty level, and anything else you can think of that will help us improve this game. You can provide feedback in the comments of this article, or you can fill out this Google Form.

Enjoy!

Teryl Austin actually drew up something… creative?

Welcome back to BTSC’s “One random Steelers play” series. (Here’s the first edition if you’d like a reminder of how this works).

The TL:DR? In this dead part of the summer, we’re using a random number generator to find a singular play from the Steelers’ 2024, then using it as an excuse to talk about last season and some general football insights.

This week, the random number generator chose the 129th play of the Steelers’ Week 11 win over the Baltimore Ravens. The play was a third quarter second-and-six where the Pittsburgh defense steamrolled a Derrick Henry outside zone run for no gain. Pretty cool, right?

However, last week’s play was very similar — essentially, it came down to defenders winning their individual matchups — and we’ve already gone over Henry zone runs in a past edition.

So, feel free to watch that play on your own time, but I decided to move forward two plays (not one as the next was a false start), and voila — finally something interesting.

The context: Baltimore has the ball on their own 13-yard-line. It’s third and 11. The Steelers are up 15-10 with 15 minutes left in the fourth quarter.

Here’s the play:

Pausing pre-snap, we can see that the Steelers are in their dime package, which means six defensive backs (one more than nickel): two safeties, two outside cornerbacks, and two slot cornerbacks. Given the down and distance, the Steelers are expecting a pass here and choose their personnel accordingly.

Pittsburgh also lines up in an overload front on the right side of the Ravens’ line, with three-quarters of the defensive line on one side of the center. To fill the gaping hole on the other side, Patrick Queen, the one inside linebacker on the field, threatens to blitz over the left guard.

The initial coverage shell is pretty ambiguous here, too. Strong safety Damontae Kazee is playing the deepest and Minkah Fitzpatrick is out of his usual centerfielder role. Could this be a rotated cover 3, or some sort of cover 2 or 4?

Then, the Ravens snap the ball, and the Steelers secondary quickly realigns. Queen sprints backwards into the middle hole while Fitzpatrick moves forward to the hook/curl zone on his side of the field. Now, the cover 2 shell is Kazee and boundary cornerback Joey Porter Jr., presenting the Ravens with an inverted cover 2 look.

You can see the coverage defenders without deep responsibilities form a five-man wall of sorts right at the sticks. They’re fine with anything underneath — just don’t allow a first down.

I added arrows in the screenshot above to show where the Ravens receivers are running. The route concept itself (intermediate out-breakers for the boundary receivers, crossers for the rest) is actually a halfway-decent cover 2 beater. In theory, there’s a hole shot (between the shallow and deep zones) available for both Zay Flowers on the top of the screen and Rashod Bateman on the bottom.

However, Lamar Jackson flushes out of the pocket early despite good protection against the Steelers’ four-man rush and doesn’t have time to make either throw. Nose tackle Keeanu Benton gets some early penetration even though he’s eventually stopped, causing Jackson to bail.

But this is also why disguises on defense can be so helpful — the unorthodox pass rush speeds up Jackson’s internal clock, and the post-snap secondary rotation slows his ability to identify the coverage.

As Jackson breaks out of the pocket right, it looks like T.J. Watt loses contain. However, I think it was supposed to be a delayed stunt with Preston Smith looping to the outside of Watt. Instead, there’s a missed holding call and Smith can’t secure the edge in time.

But the veteran pass rushers don’t panic. Smith takes a wide angle to keep Jackson from breaking upfield, while Watt slows down to prevent any sort of cutback. With Jackson out of the pocket, he’s cut his passing options in half, and the Steelers have five defenders covering just two Ravens receivers.

At this point, Jackson’s only hope is to hold out long enough for someone to get open. Running back Justice Hill (No. 43), coming across the field, actually finds a vacant zone for a split second before Donte Jackson crashes on the route.

However, by then Jackson is busy avoiding Preston Smith, and he’s eventually forced out of bounds by Watt before he can make a throw. Pittsburgh gets the third-down stop.

And because Jackson stepped off the field behind the line of scrimmage, it would count as one of Watt’s 11.5 sacks last season.

The Ravens would punt on the following fourth and 15. The Steelers would eventually win 18-16.

Believe it or not, the Steelers actually did a few creative things on defense in 2024.

What are your thoughts and takeaways on this random Steelers play? Any suggestions for the series? Join the BTSC community and let us know in the comments!

Camp Opens This Weekly Edition

My fence is done, Mrs SNW took the picture of the south side of our yard. Right side if you’re facing the house. It’s the side yard, and it’s a pretty steep slope.

What home projects have you been killing the NFL downtime with? Are you gaining, or loosing, like us?

The Redman competition starts Wednesday. Someone might just show in a way to carry them into the lead.

Let us know what you’ve heard, know, or want to know about the Steelers as the week progresses. Just life stuff is welcome as usual.

Come and join this merry band of Steelers’ faithful for some lively debate about our Steelers, good food, music, and the merits of the odd cold beverage.

Live from not-Delaware, it’s Saturday Night! This week, it’ll be I, Ryland Bickley, not NAS204PSU, bringing you this Saturday Night Open Thread (aka SNOT).

In the spirit of the great work NAS always does with these threads, I’ve attempted to theme the questions this week. Steelers players report to training camp Wednesday, meaning they’re probably planning for their time in the Saint Vincent College dorms through the next few weeks of summer.

For this week’s thread, so will we.

This six pack of questions is here to get the conversation going is below, also let us know what you’re eating/drinking!

1. The grand training camp entrance. What’s your dream car?
2. Hanging out in the dorms. What snacks are you packing?
3. Backs vs. backers. Which Steelers running back/linebacker do you least want to go against in this drill?
4. Seven shots. Arthur Smith lets you call one play from the two-yard-line. What are you drawing up?
5. Media availability. Have you ever been in the news?
6. “Friday Night Lights” practice. What’s the best football-related movie/show/book you’ve ever watched/read?