The 2020 season should prove to be an interesting one for current Pittsburgh Steelers offensive lineman Matt Feiler, who has started 26 total games for the team over the course of the last two seasons. While most of us expect Feiler to remain a member of the Steelers this offseason via a restricted free agent tender, that process has yet to transpire with one month to go before the start of the new league year. Feiler, however, obviously hopes to remain in Pittsburgh for at least another season.
“I would love to stay here. I love it here,” said Feiler, during a recent interview with steelers.com. “My family is from Pennsylvania, so we are very close to home. I think we found a home here.”
While most of Feiler’s playing time with the Steelers has come at the right tackle position, he did start one game last season at left guard against the Los Angeles Rams and represented himself reasonably well at the different position. Because of that and combined with the fact that two other Steelers offensive linemen, Ramon Foster and B.J. Finney, might not be retained this offseason, it’s been easy to speculate that Feiler might be tasked with making a more permanent move to left guard for the 2020 season this offseason.
Keeping Feiler in Pittsburgh this offseason would likely require the Steelers to issue the former undrafted free agent out of Bloomsburg University a second-round restricted tender in the next four weeks which is expected to come with price tag of around $3.278 million. That would be quite a raise for Feiler as to date he’s earned roughly $1.9602 million since entering the NFL in 2014 as an undrafted free agent with the Houston Texans. While Feiler awaits a possible restricted tender from the Steelers, he’ll be busy with his offseason training to become a better player.
“I am starting to see and realize the areas I need to work on more, especially on film,” said Feiler during a one-on-one interview with Missi Matthews not too long ago. “Seeing it on film makes me want to work on that more. My footwork and my movement. I feel like I am a little tight in the hips sometimes. I want to work on flexibility and mobility and things like that.
“I just have to continue to do what I have been doing. Every offseason I have worked on something that I have found a weakness in during the season. I am going to continue to do that.”
Feiler also recently revealed his very optimistic outlook for the 2020 Steelers team he very much hopes to be a part of.
“I think the sky is the limit,” said Feiler. “We have a good defense. We have a lot of weapons on offense. We have a lot of young guys who can make plays and are willing to make plays. Getting Ben [Roethlisberger] back is having another huge weapon for us.”
