The Pittsburgh Steelers have a major set challenges facing them for the offseason of 2019 after they managed to miss the postseason for the first time in five years. The failure has been taken especially grievously because of the fact that the team was in position to control their own fate even for homefield advantage with six games remaining before dropping four games.
And so they find themselves getting the exit meeting process underway at least two weeks earlier than they have had to in years, since they have made it to at least the Divisional Round since 2015. Hopefully they used those extra two weeks with purpose.
While we might not know all the details about what goes on between Head Coach Mike Tomlin and his players during these exit meetings, we do know how we would conduct those meetings if they were let up to us. So here are the Depot’s exit meetings for the Steelers’ roster following the 2018 season.
Player: Ramon Foster
Position: Guard
Experience: 10 Years
It’s not every undrafted free agent that can carve out a 10-year NFL career for himself, the majority of which is spent as a full-time starter, but that is exactly what Ramon Foster has done since he signed with the Steelers as a college free agent following the 2009 NFL Draft.
Though he has only been an outright, unquestioned starter since 2013 (he would have been a backup in 2012 had David DeCastro not suffered a torn MCL in the preseason, with Willie Colon having moved to left guard), he had plenty of opportunities to start even before that.
42 of his 131 career starts came between 2009 and 2012. He has started every game in which he has played since then, missing a total of seven games in that span. He started all 16 games in 2018. In fact, I don’t believe he ever came off the field. And that was after he suffered a fairly serious injury in training camp.
Foster played his game this year, the usual solid, underrated showing that he has been giving for most of his career. There is not much to say about it, other than the mere fact that it is consistently reliable, and you can’t ask for much more than that.
That’s one of the many reasons the Steelers are apparently trying to bring him back, even though he is set to be a free agent at the age of 33 and they have two backups who have already made successful starts at guard.
Foster brings a lot of intangible value to the locker room, and to the stability of the offensive line, which is more important this season as the group transitions from coach Mike Munchak to Shaun Sarrett. He should receive the biggest contact of his career—and perhaps his last—but he deserves it, and it will probably be worth it if it gets done.
