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: Roosevelt Nix
Position: Fullback
Experience: 4 Years
Yeah, remember him? I didn’t until now, as I talked about yesterday. And perhaps that isn’t a great surprise considering that he played a career-low number of snaps in 2018 in spite of the fact that he played in every game.
Interestingly enough, it was the first season in which he did not start any games, so that really goes hand-in-hand with the drop in his playing time, which averaged just a hair over five snaps per game. And yet he caught a career-high four passes for 38 yards and ran the ball for a four-gain gain, a career-long. Still, he scored two touchdowns in 2017, and also played a career-high in snaps that year, so it hardly compares.
With the Steelers running the ball as infrequently as ever, it should almost go without saying that the fullback position would be the one that suffers the most. Will we see the Steelers be more balanced in 2019 in terms of the run-pass ratio? Will the departure of Jesse James help him get on the field any more frequently?
Well, I can probably answer the latter question, in the negative. In fact, James was often taken off the field in running situations, the Steelers giving Xavier Grimble a package in which he was paired with either an extra lineman or the fullback.
Of course his value rests primarily, where he played a whopping 300-plus snaps. He is a fixture on all of their return and coverage units, so that’s no surprise. He recorded seven special teams tackles last year, the second-most behind Tyler Matakevich’s eight. He also forced a fumble and blocked a punt, but was penalized an astonishing six times. He had only been penalized four times on special teams in the previous three seasons combined, so that needs to be corrected.
