The Steelers' hideous 2025 throwbacks are somehow not their grossest

USA Today

6 days ago

The simple beauty of the Pittsburgh Steelers is a steadfast grip on tradition. The glory of the team's run through the 1970s established them as an icon, creating outposts at unofficial "Steelers bars" across the globe where the same fans gather each Sunday in the fall. The Terrible Towel preserved Myron Cope's legacy as not only a gravel-voiced chorus that rang across western Pennsylvania but as a fandom innovator.
The franchise has had three presidents in 89 years of existence, all from the Rooney family. Pittsburgh has had three general managers since 1991 and three head coaches since 1969. The team's uniforms are clean and classic enough that the University of Iowa, itself a sigil of throwback football now and until the heat death of the universe, copied them almost wholesale (with permission).
This is all to say, the Steelers persist. That means when it's time to dust off an old school uniform, they have to go all the way back to a time before the Super Bowl existed.
And when you're borrowing from the 1930s, you wind up in a place where stripes were considered a bold and innovative new design.
Let's dispatch the elephant in this room. The jerseys, busy as they may be, are not the problem on their own. But matching them with a yellow helmet that allows little room for contrast was always going to heighten that static. When you add beige pants -- a different color that's not nearly different enough -- things truly begin to look rough. Factor in yellow socks (not beige) and you get the distinct impression the 1930s were a time where post-war rationing was still a thing and mostly applied to pant fabric.
Still, it's a throwback to a different era that ties in plenty of local history from the franchise itself to the great city of Pittsburgh. That's a different time that saw the franchise go 25-71-6 in its first nine seasons, but it's a lovely sentiment.
More importantly, it's not the worst uniforms the Steelers could have dug up. Let us remember, friends, the bumblebee alternates of 2012 through 2016.
Pittsburgh chose the less gross of two options when it came to 1933, eschewing the pre-World War II swarm look for the slimming effect of vertical stripes. It also took advantage of the league's expanded helmet rules to bring back the yellow lids that came with those 30s kits and made a brief comeback in the late 2000s.
So the Steelers will certainly look different for at least one game this fall. And they'll look at least a little bit ugly, too. But they won't look the worst they ever have, because for five straight seasons we got to see Ben Roethlisberger clumsily lope through the backfield before winging touchdown passes like an overfed bumblebee.