There is no denying this offseason has been the busiest of all time for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Between a complete rebuild of the front office to significant roster changes, this will be a very different Pittsburgh team in 2022.
But were all the changes for the better and did the team do enough? According to ESPN, they weren’t impressed by the Steelers roster moves. They ranked the Steelers No. 19 in the NFL in terms of the offseason. Here’s a bit of what they had to say about what went right and what went wrong.
What went right:
Then, facing rumors that as many as five quarterbacks would go in the first round of the draft, the Steelers stayed put and didn’t sacrifice picks to move up and get the player they wanted. In the end, every quarterback was still on the board at No. 20, so coach Mike Tomlin and his team got to take the player they wanted in local prospect Kenny Pickett. You could make a case they should have landed a better option, but if they liked Pickett and Trubisky, they got their 2022 quarterbacks on reasonable terms.
What went wrong:
Given a difficult cap situation, the Steelers probably didn’t need to go after players such as Gunner Olszewski in free agency, even on low-cost deals. Cornerback, once the deepest position on this defense, has been thinned out enough by disappointments and cap-enforced departures that they needed to add Bills corner Levi Wallace on a two-year, $8 million deal.
It would be easy as someone who follows the Steelers much closer than Bill Barnwell but the fact that is clear is the Steelers did not have a difficult cap situation going into the offseason. There was plenty of money to spend and Pittsburgh did a great job managing it, even if I don’t feel like adding Levi Wallace at cornerback was the best use of $8 million.
As far as the quarterback situation goes, the Steelers made the best of a bad situation and it’s hard to see how short of a massive trade, they could have done better to replace Ben Roethlisberger.
Let us know in the comments what you think of where Barnwell has the Steelers ranked.
