Pittsburgh Steelers Down the Stretch
The Steelers aren't Aaron Rodgers' team. Even Mike McCarthy knows they are not Mike McCarthy's team. They belong to Darnell Washington and all he represents.
Submitted for your approval: Darnell Washington.
The Steelers tight end lists at 6-foot-7 and 264 pounds. If he were a hero in a Norse saga, he would be 8-foot-10, weigh more than a mead hall and wield an axe with the trunk of an oak tree for its handle. Washington’s actual measurements probably lay somewhere in between. (Pro Football Focus goes with 6-foot-6, 311 pounds. Sounds about right.)
Washington looks and blocks like a right tackle but moves like a power forward on a fast break. Hands? No worse than Matthew Golden’s. Washington is Kung Fu Panda, the Round Mound of Rebound, the thicc lad who becomes a playground hero because no one wants to tackle him once his steam engine is stoked. Washington is a unicorn, in the sense that the legend of the unicorn may have been based on garbled descriptions of a rhinoceros.
Washington may not be an All-Pro tight end, but he is a real tight end. He’s a throwback, but he may also be a trendsetter. The Steelers selected him in the third round of the 2023 draft, but if Washington were available last April, the Jaguars or Rams might have traded up in the first round for him. Washington is the perfect tight end for multi-tight end football, capable of flattening linebackers and speedy edge rushers in the running game and splattering cornerbacks after a catch in the flat.
Players like Washington fuel our love of football. We all love chubby, ornery fellows who do the dirtiest of the dirty work. Washington represents slobberknocker football in all its mucky glory.
So this edition of Down the Stretch invites you to think of the 6-2, playoff-bound Steelers not as Aaron Rodgers’ team, nor as Mike McCarthy’s team (heaven forbid), but as Darnell Washington’s team. The Steelers have harkened back to their past for too long. Washington, and players like him, may be the key to harnessing their past instead.
The Steelers Story So Far
Mike Tomlin resigned at the end of the 2025 season, after 19 years as the Steelers head coach. It was a brilliant career decision for Tomlin, who gets to bide his time as America’s most beloved over-50 video game influencer until he is offered his pick of fresh starts if/when he decides to return to coaching.
The arch-traditional Steelers used Tomlin’s departure as an opportunity to make as few changes as possible. They replaced the Minecraft-obsessed Tomlin with Mike McCarthy, who is more of a Farmville kind of guy. They hired McCarthy based on Aaron Rodgers’ suggestion, at least according to The Athletic’s Mike Silver, who thinks Rodgers’ farts sound like Vivaldi and smell like oatmeal cookies. The Steelers then waited through free agency and the draft for Rodgers himself to return, never daring to glance at any potential rivals, stopgap replacements or potential successors (Drew Allar doesn’t count).
If the Rodgers-Steelers relationship sounds healthy to you, please seek counseling and delete any dating apps.
