PITTSBURGH -- The Pittsburgh Steelers have entered this offseason in unfamiliar territory.
It’s not just that the team has a question mark at starting quarterback for the first time in nearly two decades after the retirement of Ben Roethlisberger, it’s that the Steelers are on the brink of a rebuilding season -- and the Pittsburgh Steelers don’t do rebuilds.
The team hasn’t had a losing season since 2003, and hasn’t finished last in its division since 1988.
To avoid breaking those streaks in a division that boasts the Super Bowl runner-up in the Cincinnati Bengals, the 2019 MVP in the Baltimore Ravens’ Lamar Jackson, and the Cleveland Browns’ top-4 rushing attack, the next four months will go a long way to determining the direction of the 2022 Steelers, beginning with free agency in March.
“[We] never go into it with that plan of rebuild,” outgoing general manager Kevin Colbert said Monday. “Art [Rooney II]’s emphasis every year is that we have to compete for a championship, and I don't think that'll ever change.”
But the Steelers are at a crossroads. They have pieces of a championship team with players like reigning defensive player of the year T.J. Watt, safety Minkah Fitzpatrick, defensive lineman Cam Heyward, wide receiver Diontae Johnson and running back Najee Harris. But they also have significant roster holes and need fresh ideas to get the offense and defense back on track.
To simply compete in the AFC North, much less win another Super Bowl, the Steelers’ to-do list is lengthy: find Roethlisberger’s successor, revamp the offensive line, improve the inside linebackers, shore up the defensive line, add an anchor to the cornerback position -- just to name a few. There’s also signing Fitzpatrick to a long-term deal and deciding whether Johnson has earned one, too.
“I don’t know if we’ll ever be rebuilding,” Watt said on an Associated Press podcast from the Super Bowl. “That’s never the way I look at things.
“I think that we have more than enough talent on this roster. We have great coaches to be able to win a lot of games. I think we won a decent amount of games this past year (9-7), were able to get into the playoffs. Every year, you’re just trying to get into the playoffs and anything can happen. … We’ll see what happens at the quarterback position, trust in the guys upstairs to be able to bring a guy in that can win us some games. I’m going to do everything in my power to take care of things on the defensive side of the ball.”
The Steelers are projected to have at least $33 million in cap space, with the potential to find more room through rollover, restructures and releases, but Colbert said he doesn’t expect the additional space to change the team’s free-agency mindset.
“I never view us as being that aggressive, front-of-the-line free-agency team,” Colbert said. “We never have been, and I don’t anticipate that changing.
“But I can’t say it wouldn’t. I hate to say that because I am saying two different things, but traditionally, we haven’t been because we haven’t had that cap room.”
There’s also the reality that the Steelers are teetering on the edge of a rebuild largely because of moves made -- and not made -- last year. A combination of a COVID-19-reduced salary cap and the Steelers’ way of doing business put the team well over the cap to start the 2021 offseason. Through restructures and retirements the team gained some breathing room, but it still had a relatively quiet free agency. The Steelers signed outside linebacker Melvin Ingram and guard Trai Turner to low-cost one-year deals late in free agency and added offensive tackle Joe Haeg on a two-year contract. The Steelers also managed to bring back some of their own people, including cornerback Cam Sutton, receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster, defensive end Chris Wormley and defensive tackle Tyson Alualu.
But not all of those moves paid off, and injuries took a toll. Alualu and Smith-Schuster were hurt most of the season. Offensive tackle Zach Banner, who appeared to have the inside track to a starting tackle job, never started a game after a prolonged recovery from a torn ACL. And though they added players at positions of need like cornerback and offensive guard, the Steelers also released cornerback Steve Nelson to save cap space, and they cut longtime guard David DeCastro because of a nagging ankle injury. Center Maurkice Pouncey retired and the Steelers didn’t retain guard Matt Feiler, offensive tackle Alejandro Villanueva or versatile defensive back Mike Hilton in free agency.
“We knew last year's free-agency class was big, and we had a lot of unique -- good -- players coming to the end of their contracts,” Colbert said. “And then we got hit with the reduced salary caps and it really pushed us against the wall. And then we had Maurkice Pouncey retiring, David DeCastro deciding that maybe due to some medical things he was going to step aside as well.
“And then we go into it. We had Matt Feiler and Alejandro, who were UFAs and we didn’t know what their market would be, and we knew we were in a tough, tough situation. So, we tried to do what we could from a free-agency standpoint, which was limited until later in the game when some things fell into place with reduced contracts and different ways to structure them to make it affordable.”
With the departure of four offensive line starters, the Steelers tried to reload with the draft and discount replacements in free agency. It didn’t work. Roethlisberger was sacked 38 times -- the most since 2013 -- and the run game was fourth-worst in the league despite the addition of a first-round running back in Harris.
On Monday, Colbert admitted the team probably should have signed an additional offensive lineman in 2021.
“We knew that the offensive line was going to be young,” Colbert said. “If I have any regrets, it's probably from not adding another veteran, an affordable veteran, that maybe could have eased the growth time for that group, but we knew it was going to be a tough year.”
The Steelers also haven’t drafted or added a significant quarterback option in the past two years despite all signs pointing to Roethlisberger’s career winding down. They added former first-rounder Dwayne Haskins in 2021, but he failed to even win the backup job over Mason Rudolph. Now, the Steelers will have to find Roethlisberger’s replacement either in Rudolph or Haskins, through a below-average quarterback draft class or a bridge solution in free agency or a trade. The holes on the offensive line and the team’s historical hesitancy to part with valuable draft capital make it unlikely the team would be able to trade for a big-name quarterback like Aaron Rodgers or Russell Wilson.
The 2022 offseason is pivotal for the team in navigating the post-Roethlisberger era. After Terry Bradshaw retired following the 1983 season, the Steelers had seven losing seasons until they drafted Roethlisberger in 2004. They also missed the playoffs four years in a row from 1985 to '88. Since drafting Roethlisberger, the Steelers have missed the playoffs only six times.
To maintain the standard established in the past two decades, the Steelers must walk the tightrope of a perfect offseason by finding a future franchise quarterback and adding key pieces around him. Otherwise, the team won't be able to avoid a rebuild this time.