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: Bud Dupree
Position: Outside Linebacker
Experience: 4 Years
Four years into his career, Bud Dupree’s coaches still have to talk about him in terms of potential, and that tends to be a bad sign. Assuming relatively okay health and availability, most players outside of the quarterback position perhaps should already be, or be approaching, the type of player they are capable of being by that point in their careers.
The former first-round edge rusher has only totaled 20 career sacks in 54 games, with 39 starts. His fellow outside linebacker, T.J. Watt, has accumulated 20 sacks over the course of his first two seasons, in 31 games with 31 starts.
He has made very small incremental strides over the course of the past two seasons, but that has only netted 11 and a half sacks over that span. He has had more success winning reps against tackles and has brought pressure a bit more consistently, but it still falls short of the sort of production that would be expected of him.
In spite of his inability to reach his potential at this point, however, it seems as though the Steelers plan to continue the journey, maybe hoping that somebody other than Joey Porter will have better luck with him. It sounds as though they intend to honor his fifth-year option to give him one more year to see what he can produce. In his defense, Dee Ford just had his best season in year five.
