If one thing is constant in life, it is change. We change every year, every week and everyday. Sports is not different, and for the Pittsburgh Steelers, they are at a crossroads that many teams before them have been at, what now?
For the Steelers fans that had the pleasure of watching the team win four Super Bowls in the 1970s, the team was led by a stout defense and a Hall of Fame quarterback in the form of Terry Bradshaw, but once his career came to a close, the team saw a decade and a half of subpar football until the late 90s and early 2000s. We are now into 2021, and future Hall of Fame quarterback Ben Roethlisberger may have played his final NFL game after a 48-37 loss to the Cleveland Browns, a team that Roethlisberger was 24-2-1 in his career before entering their Wild Card matchup Sunday night. The game was never in the Steelers hands from the very start, and no blame needs to be placed on one singular coach or player, this effort was the product of everyone on the field and in the organization just not being ready when it mattered. About two months ago, the Steelers were riding high at 11-0 and Roethlisberger was even being talked about as an MVP candidate. Now Roethlisberger and the Steelers lost five of their last six and the 41 million dollar cap hit that Roethlisberger has in 2021 seems even more of a liability on the team's long term plans heading into the offseason. Juju Smith-Schuster, James Conner, Alejandro Villanueva, Mike Hilton and Bud Dupree are all slated to head to free agency with the Steelers cap situation looking dire, so that cap hit will definitely not help things for Kevin Colbert and company and even Colbert has been labeled as a possibility to leave the GM role in Pittsburgh to head to Detroit as his contract has expired. Again, the Steelers are at a crossroads. Tomlin will enter 2021 in his final year of his contract, having only one a playoff game in four of his 14 seasons, but the likelihood he stays is high. For offensive coordinator Randy Fichtner, he is likely seeing his way out of Pittsburgh with an expiring contract and a subpar season offensively for Pittsburgh. This leads me to my point. The Steelers have no money to work with in free agency and a late draft pick. For starters, even if Ben stays, the Steelers need to draft their quarterback of the future, be it Kyle Trask, Mac Jones or Trey Lance to name a few, and they need to draft or bring in another running back to establish a run game next season for Ben or a rookie to not have to throw a whopping 68 times in a playoff game. As most teams, the Steelers have plenty more questions than answers heading into the offseason and beyond, but change needs to happen. Does it need to be drastic? No, of course not. But changes to the coaching staff, a potential new quarterback, a rehashing of the offensive line and establishing the future are definitely some things that should be in order. Change is coming and the puzzle pieces are laid out on the table which poses the question, which puzzle will the Steelers decide to put together?
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June 2021
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