The Security Blanket Nobody Threw To

There is a stat about Pat Freiermuth's 2025 season that I want you to sit with before we go anywhere.

He dropped one pass. One. On 54 targets and 41 receptions, no drops to speak of beyond that single ball, and not a fumble on the year. He has been, in the words of the Steelers' own pre-camp preview, a security blanket for eight different quarterbacks in his time in Pittsburgh.

Eight quarterbacks. One reliable tight end. And in the year the Steelers most desperately needed a reliable target — a season where the passing game was starving for anyone who could catch the ball and move the chains — Pat Freiermuth saw the lowest snap share of his entire career.

After being on the field for 69 percent of the offensive snaps in 2024, that number dropped to 51 percent in 2025. There were only eight games in which he saw at least four targets. And there were four games in which he had either just one target or none at all.

Read that last part again. Four games with one target or none. For a healthy, ascending, 27-year-old tight end that the franchise had just paid like a cornerstone.

This is not a story about a player who couldn't produce. This is a story about a player who was never asked to.

I. What They Paid For, And What They Got

Let's establish the money first, because the money is the whole reason this is a story and not just a shrug.

Just ahead of the 2024 season, the Steelers signed Freiermuth to a four-year, $48.4 million extension. It was a number high enough that some thought the Steelers might have actually committed too much money to the tight end.

For a franchise that has historically treated second contracts like a sacred rite — you earn it, you get it, you're a Steeler for life — that was a real bet. And the guy they bet on had earned it. His 732 receiving yards in 2022 were the sixth-most by a tight end in the NFL that season and the fifth-most in a single season by a tight end in franchise history. That year he was one of four tight ends in the entire league with at least five games of 75-plus receiving yards — the others being Travis Kelce, George Kittle, and Mark Andrews.

That's the company he was keeping. Kelce, Kittle, Andrews, and Freiermuth.

Now here's what the Steelers got for their $48.4 million in Year Two of the deal:

After finishing 2024 with 78 targets and 65 receptions, he had just 54 and 41 in 2025. He was still solid at 11.9 yards per catch. But he finished with just 486 receiving yards.

And it wasn't his fault. That's not me being generous. That's the assessment from people who cover this team every day. Steelers Depot put it plainly: it wasn't his fault, but that isn't the production the Steelers were hoping for considering his price tag. CBS Sports was blunter — his ceiling was significantly capped by the presence of both Jonnu Smith and Darnell Washington, as well as the run-first schematic design of former offensive coordinator Arthur Smith.

There it is. The name at the center of this whole thing.

II. The Arthur Smith Problem (Which Was Really A Tomlin Problem)

I want to be fair here, because the easy version of this article is "Mike Tomlin hated tight ends" and that's not true and it's not interesting.

The honest version is more damning.

Arthur Smith ran a run-first, condensed, heavy-personnel offense in 2025 — the kind of scheme that uses tight ends as blockers and decoys far more than as receivers. Smith has since left to become the offensive coordinator at Ohio State. And in that system, the Steelers had a genuine logjam: Freiermuth, Jonnu Smith, and an emerging Darnell Washington all competing for the same snaps in a run-heavy design.

Three tight ends. One run-first scheme. A wide receiver room so thin that the red-zone first read was almost always DK Metcalf. Something had to give, and what gave was the most reliable pass-catcher on the roster getting frozen out for entire Sundays at a time.

Here's the thing that should bother you if you're a Steelers fan. When Freiermuth was given the ball, look what happened.

His five-catch, 111-yard, two-touchdown explosion against the Cincinnati Bengals almost carried the Steelers to a win single-handedly. He also had a habit that tells you everything about how he was being used: he continued his recent trend of coming on late in games — missing both of his first-half targets against one opponent before erupting for 51 yards on three receptions after halftime.

Translate that from stat-line to English: when the game script forced them to actually throw him the ball, he produced immediately. The "problem" with Freiermuth was never Freiermuth. It was a scheme that only remembered he existed when it was losing.

This is the core grievance, and it's a legitimate one. You do not pay a man $48.4 million to be a fourth-quarter emergency option. You do not roster one of the surest hands in football and use him at 51 percent. That's not conservative game-planning. That's malpractice with a Pro Bowl talent.

III. Enter McCarthy — And More Importantly, Enter Angelichio

Everything changed on January 13, 2026, when Mike Tomlin stepped down after 19 seasons. Two weeks later, the Steelers did something they almost never do.

They hired a 62-year-old. An offensive-minded, experienced, Pittsburgh-native offensive-minded coach in Mike McCarthy — their fourth head coach since 1969, and the oldest head coach in franchise history. The last three — Noll, Cowher, Tomlin — were all defense-first minds. McCarthy is a departure. The initial reaction from the fan base was mixed; hiring a veteran retread over a young innovator wasn't the sexy move.

But for our purposes, McCarthy the head coach matters less than the man he hired to run the offense with him.

The Steelers hired Brian Angelichio as offensive coordinator. Angelichio spent the last four seasons as the Minnesota Vikings' passing game coordinator and tight ends coach, and he previously coached under McCarthy with Rodgers in Green Bay from 2016-18 — as a tight ends coach.

Now look at this man's entire career arc:

Fourteen years. Six NFL teams. One position, over and over: tight ends.

The Steelers didn't hire a coordinator who happens to know tight ends. They hired a career tight ends coach and made him the coordinator. Along the way, Angelichio helped develop stars like Gary Barnidge and Jimmy Graham.

Jimmy Graham. A converted college basketball player who became one of the most dangerous receiving tight ends of his era. That's on Angelichio's résumé.

If you were designing, in a laboratory, the single coach most likely to finally unlock Pat Freiermuth, you would build Brian Angelichio. FOX Sports called the hire, without hedging, "music to Pat Freiermuth's ears."

IV. The Room Cleared Out

Here's where scheme meets roster, and where the 2026 setup separates itself from the 2025 mess.

Remember the logjam? It's gone.

Pittsburgh's tight end room lost both Jonnu Smith (released) and Connor Heyward (signed with the Raiders) this offseason. With Smith released and Heyward gone to free agency, Freiermuth and Washington are the primary — really the only established — tight end options.

Two mouths to feed instead of three. And the two that remain genuinely complement each other rather than cannibalizing snaps. Freiermuth is a fine blocker but he's better as a receiver — as seen every time he was actually given chances. Washington is the elite blocker, mostly thanks to his unique size, and he's shown flashes catching the ball. Washington broke out in 2025 with career highs of 31 receptions and 364 receiving yards.

As the Steelers' own preview framed it: both are likely deserving of being a No. 1 tight end in an NFL offense, but in Pittsburgh they complement each other well — and the challenge for McCarthy and Angelichio is finding ways to feature both.

That's a good problem. That's the opposite of the 2025 problem. And Angelichio has been all but doing cartwheels about it since April:

"We are excited to push the envelope with Darnell and Pat Freiermuth." — Brian Angelichio

He's also framed it as a matter of trust — that Freiermuth has to believe his route usage can help him become a bigger factor, and that when a coordinator says one thing in a meeting and another on the field, trust fades quickly. Angelichio says he wants the opposite of that. After a year of being a fourth-quarter afterthought, a coordinator promising clarity and expanded routes is exactly the message Freiermuth needed to hear.

The front office is saying it out loud, too. GM Omar Khan, at the Combine: "We paid Pat for a reason. He represents us well, and Pat's a Steeler." Khan added that he expects Freiermuth to be a big part of the offense in 2026.

And then the Steelers put a small piece of money where their mouth was. In May, they restructured Freiermuth's deal, converting salary into a roster bonus and paying him nearly $6 million in a lump sum — dropping his 2026 cap hit from $11.2 million while pushing money into future years. As Behind the Steel Curtain noted, the move could act as a reminder to Steelers Nation of Freiermuth's expectations under a new coaching staff.

You don't restructure to keep a guy you're planning to bury.

V. The Rodgers Factor (Familiarity Cuts Both Ways)

Now the wrinkle. Because there's always a wrinkle.

Aaron Rodgers is back for his second year in Pittsburgh, his 22nd and apparently final NFL season, reuniting with McCarthy — the coach he spent 13 years with in Green Bay. Rodgers led the 2025 Steelers to a division title with 3,322 yards and 24 touchdowns before the wild-card loss to Houston. On the offense, Rodgers said: "I spent 13 years in McCarthy's offense. He's changed some stuff when he was in Dallas. It's stuff that we used to run, but he's just called it something different now."

So the scheme is familiar to the quarterback, familiar to the coach, and built by a coordinator who's spent his life feeding tight ends. On paper this is Freiermuth heaven.

But here's the honest counterweight, and I'm not going to pretend it away.

Rodgers didn't throw him the ball much last year either. As Steelers Depot noted, even though Rodgers didn't give him a ton of looks last season, the two now have a year of familiarity. Some of that was Arthur Smith's scheme. But some of it is just how Rodgers plays at 42 — he has favorite reads, he trusts who he trusts, and last year in the red zone that trust ran through DK Metcalf almost every time.

CBS Sports, projecting 2026, still had reservations: both Smith and Washington were expected back, and the first red-zone read would consistently be Metcalf — making it difficult to envision an upside scenario for Freiermuth even if McCarthy sparks the offense. That was written before Jonnu Smith was released, so one of those obstacles is already gone. But the Metcalf point stands, and it's fair.

There's also this uncomfortable truth about the whole 2026 operation, courtesy of analyst Nate Tice: Rodgers has every weapon he needs — a retooled receiver room, good backs, an elite tight end group — and if this offense stalls, Rodgers will likely be the reason why. The quarterback is 42. The window is measured in months. If the ball distribution is going to change, it has to change through a Hall of Famer in his final act who has spent a career throwing to whom he pleases.

Familiarity with McCarthy's system is the reason Freiermuth might finally eat. It's also the reason he might not — because the guy pulling the trigger already has 13 years of muscle memory that didn't always run through the tight end.

VI. The Honest Counterargument

I've spent this whole piece building the case that Freiermuth was wasted and is about to be unleashed. Let me argue the other side, because the other side has real points.

Maybe the Steelers know exactly what Freiermuth is, and it's a very good complementary piece — not a centerpiece. He's never had a 1,000-yard season. His best year, 2022, was 732 yards. Reliable, chain-moving, red-zone-capable — but not a tight end who bends a defense the way Kelce or Andrews in his prime did. It's possible 2024's 65 catches is closer to his ceiling than 2022's yardage suggests, and that we're all romanticizing a really good No. 2 option into a star he was never quite going to be.

Two featured tight ends is a nice idea that rarely survives contact with a real defense. Someone eats and someone blocks. That's usually how it goes. Angelichio can say "push the envelope" all he wants; there are only so many targets, and Metcalf, Michael Pittman Jr., Jaylen Warren out of the backfield, and Washington are all also standing there with their hands out. McCarthy went and traded for Pittman specifically to add a physical, all-three-alignments receiver next to Metcalf. That's more competition for the ball, not less.

And "new coach will fix the underused guy" is one of the most reliable pieces of offseason fan fiction there is. Every spring, some player is about to be unlocked. Most springs, the tape in December looks a lot like the tape from the December before. Optimism is free in July. Targets are expensive in November.

If you want to bet against this article, those are your three tickets. They're not bad ones.

VII. Five Predictions, With Reasoning

1. Freiermuth's snap share climbs back above 65 percent — comfortably. The room cleared out. Jonnu Smith is gone, Heyward is gone. There is no longer a three-way logjam forcing him off the field. Even in a run-leaning game plan, you can't hide your best receiving tight end at 51 percent when there are only two tight ends on the roster. This is the safest prediction on the board.

2. He clears 600 receiving yards for the first time since 2022 — but doesn't hit 750. The usage goes up, the efficiency was always there (11.9 yards per catch even in a down year), and Angelichio's history says the routes get smarter. But Metcalf and Pittman are ahead of him in the target pecking order, and Rodgers spreads it around. I'll say something like 60 catches, 640 yards, 6 touchdowns. A real bounce-back. Not a Pro Bowl explosion.

3. Freiermuth, not Washington, leads Steelers tight ends in receiving. Washington's breakout was real, and his after-the-catch stuff is genuinely scary. But Angelichio has been explicit that Washington's value is tied to his blocking and physical traits, while Freiermuth is the truer route-runner. In a two-man rotation, the receiver-first tight end wins the receiving title. Muth by a clear margin.

4. The red zone remains a fight — and Freiermuth loses more of those than fans want. Metcalf is the alpha and Rodgers trusts him near the goal line. Freiermuth's four touchdowns in 2025 might tick up to six, but he is not suddenly the No. 1 red-zone read. If you're drafting him in fantasy expecting a touchdown machine, temper it.

5. By midseason, "why isn't Muth getting the ball" stops being a weekly talk-radio segment. The single biggest tell of the Arthur Smith era was that Freiermuth's usage was a recurring controversy. Under Angelichio, the volume normalizes enough that it stops being a story. Not because he becomes a superstar — because he becomes, simply, used correctly. And that, honestly, is all anyone was ever asking for.

VIII. What This Is Actually About

Strip away the scheme talk and the target projections and here's the thing sitting underneath all of it.

Pat Freiermuth is 27 years old. He's played 78 career games, caught 261 passes for 2,676 yards. He is in the theoretical prime of a tight end's career — the age when the position's best players do their best work. And he has spent the two most important years of his contract catching passes from a revolving door of quarterbacks in a scheme that treated him like furniture.

The Steelers noticed. That's the part that should give you hope. They didn't just hire a new coach and cross their fingers. They hired the one coordinator in football whose entire professional identity is making tight ends matter, cleared the room of the players clogging his path, restructured his deal, and had the GM stand at a podium and say the words "we paid Pat for a reason."

That is an organization admitting, without quite admitting it, that it got the last two years wrong.

The tragedy of the Tomlin-era offense wasn't that it lacked talent. It's that it had a $48 million security blanket folded up in the closet and kept losing games in the cold. Pittsburgh hasn't won a playoff game since the 2016 season. Nine years. An entire prime of Freiermuth's career is being spent inside that drought.

Now there's a Pittsburgh kid running the show, a tight ends whisperer calling the concepts, a Hall of Fame quarterback on his last ride, and a tight end room finally built to let its best receiver be a receiver.

The talent was never the question. The question was whether anyone in charge would finally use it.

For the first time in a long time, the guy answering that question spent his whole career learning how.

We find out in September. Muth has been ready the whole time.

Steel City Spotlight — Pittsburgh's stories, told right.