Due to current team needs and combined with the fact that their in a better position salary cap wise than they normally are at this time of year, several are expecting the Pittsburgh Steelers to be a little more active in free agency once the 2019 new league year gets underway a few more weeks from now. During a Wednesday interview on Steelers Nation Radio, Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert was asked if he’d like to make more of a splash in free agency this year and if he feels the team needs difference maker or starter to come in, whether that comes via the draft or free agency.
“We never look to make a splash,” Colbert said. “We’ve got to make the right decisions that brings the players in that might create that, but that’s never the thought. Who’s the best player that can help us in this situation regardless of the position? And we know where we’d like to increase our competition, increase our depth, maybe change some starters in the process. So, free agency, potential trades, the draft, this is what we’re doing. This is what will happen over the next two months and if we’re sitting here next year, we would have answered that question. You know what I mean? Like, did you do it? Well, I don’t know, where are we?”
Colbert’s response, while not very revealing, wasn’t very surprising just the same as he’s always been known to keep his cards very close to his vest when it comes to the Steelers plans in regard to free agency and the draft. That said, if there were every a year that the Steelers need to make a splash in free agency, and especially on the defensive side of the football where they could potential use an experienced difference-maker at cornerback or inside linebacker, this is the year.
While Colbert wouldn’t reveal any of the Steelers free agency plans for this year during his Wednesday interview, he did make it clear, as he’s always done in the past, that the organization does not believe in ever having the need to rebuild and that the goal every year is to win the Super Bowl by whatever means necessary.
“No, every year it’s competing for the Super Bowl,” Colbert said. “That will never change. I don’t care what record we’re coming off of, we’re competing for a Super Bowl. Art Rooney Jr. taught us that a long time ago. I wasn’t with Art, but I heard that. I think someone said, ‘well, this player just needs time,’ and he said, ‘we don’t have time.’ And it’s the truth. Look, they set great standards in the 70s, we tried to help those standards throughout our period here and we’ve done some good things, but we need to do more. We know that and we’re never going to rest easy until we do.”
The free agent signing begins in two weeks so that’s now how long we’ll have to wait to find out if Colbert and company will make some sort of meaningful splash. At this point, I’m not so sure that whatever splash the Steelers do wind up making in free agency a few weeks from now will result in many ripples in the expectation pool of the consensus.
