The Pittsburgh Steelers recently signed veteran free agent guard/center Stefen Wisniewski to a two-year contract and the early speculation since then is that he and Matt Feiler, who has been the team’s starting right tackle for nearly the past two seasons, will compete this summer for the starting left guard spot to open the 2020 regular season. On Monday, Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert took part in a fan question and answer session as part of the Steelers Nation Unite program and he was asked to comment on what the current plan is for the starting left guard and right tackle spots moving forward into the offseason.
“Well, you know, we have great options at those two positions,” Colbert said. “You know, Matt Feiler’s done an incredible job of turning himself into a player who had been cut, a player that was on our practice squad and a player that’s made himself into a solid starter at the right tackle position. When Ramon [Foster] was injured last season, we put Matt over at left guard, which he had played before in some previous time with us, and he did a real good job. So, we know that we have a guy that can – he’s an effective right tackle, he has played left guard.
“But in Stefen Wisniewski, we also know we have a veteran starter that has started in two Super Bowls that he happened to win. So, we feel great about the competition that can occur at that position. And we feel good about whatever the outcome is. We think it’ll be a good outcome, because one will have outcompeted the other. And you know, we feel comfortable in knowing that we have options really at more than one position in both those player’s cases because, again, Stefen can also play center while Matt gives us that guard/tackle combination.”
Colbert obviously wasn’t going to tell us in March which player he thinks might start where. Even so, what he did say on Monday gives us more reason to believe that the starting left guard position will come down to either Feiler or Wisniewski. While there have been a few speculative reports that tackle Chukwuma Okorafor might also be an option to compete for the starting left guard position this summer, there’s been nothing so far from Colbert this offseason to back that up. Besides, Okorafor has never played guard dating back to his time at Western Michigan.
The Steelers could obviously wind up drafting a guard-capable player this year and if that happens, the young player might get an opportunity to compete against Feiler and Wisniewski later this summer.
“So, it’s a nice issue to be able to deal with and we would rather have more help than not enough,” Colbert said Monday.
